Mexican author speaks on moral science

Becky Gabriel / staff photographer Author Jorge Volpi, right, and Robert Goebel, head of the foreign languages and literatures department, spoke Monday about Volpi's work "In Search of Klingsor." It examines the issues of the moral responsibilities of scientists.

An award-winning Mexican author posed questions concerning the moral responsibility of a scientist in his presentation "Science and Literature" Monday in Anthony-Seeger Auditorium.

Jorge Volpi, director of the Mexican Cultural Institute in Paris and cultural attaché at the Mexican embassy, used his book "In Search of Klingsor" in a comparative discussion with Michael Frayn's play "Copenhagen" to illustrate the similarities between the two works and how both works display the author's concerns in accordance to the moral responsibilities of a German physicist in the first half of the 20th century.

"My novel describes the process of the changing mentality of the scientist and of the entire world during the war (WWII)," Volpi said.

"In Search of Klingsor," winner of the 1999 Biblioteca Breve Prize, combines history, science, love and spy themes with a narrative based on the 1941 meeting in Copenhagen between the German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his old friend Niels Bohr and other similar episodes during the '40s and '50s, according to Volpi. The play "Copenhagen" also dramatzies the meeting.

Robert Goebel, head of the foreign languages and literatures department served as mediator for the event. "Love, intrigue and science are all tied in" to the book, and this "parallels the search in physics for a unified field theory," but the book does not give any final answers, Goebel said of Volpi's novel.
Investigations to discover details of the 1941 meeting between the two physicists, former colleagues who worked together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, left many open-ended questions as to what really occurred on that day, according to Volpi.

"We do not really know what happened on that day," Volpi said. "As in Frayn's play, ‘Copenhagen,' I also have an open ending in my novel. The reader must decide what happened in Copenhagen in 1941. Then they must make a change in the world based on his or her opinion."

He discussed many topics found throughout his novel. The prominent concern appeared to be the question of the moral standards the German physicists had while attempting to create the atomic bomb.

Volpi compared the difference in degree of moral values when speaking of a scientist who worked to build an atomic bomb for the United States, which led to future usage, versus the moral values of Heisenberg, who worked for Hitler.

Whether or not Heisenberg made sure his project "went in circles so as to deny Hitler the bomb," according to Goebel, is left unsolved.

The uncertainty principle formulated by Heisenberg served as another theme in Volpi's book, according to Goebel.

The uncertainty principle states, "We cannot determine the position and the speed of an electron at the same time," according to Goebel.

Relating to the uncertainty principle, Goebel said, "One of the points Volpi makes in his book is that this scientific statement parallels the relativistic worldview of many (people) of the 20th century."
Scientists should consider moral philosophy when confronting decisions similar to those the United States and Germany faced during the war, according to sophomores Jamie Mickelson and Erica Davies.

"Everyone is going to think differently about the moral situation presented in the novel," Mickelson said. "This makes an unresolved ending to the novel effective."

Davies said she appreciated how the subject matter was presented with a twist. "It had substance but was creative," she said. "An actual historical event with personal insight made it interesting."
Volpi is the author of seven books and currently is working on a trilogy that will focus on three sections of the 20th century, according to Volpi.

The first novel in the trilogy is "In Search of Klingsor," the second novel will discuss the '60s and '70s, and the third novel will be based on the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Volpi said he developed an interest in science when he was in primary school.

But it was not until he experienced a few "terrible physicist professors" that he decided to write about science.

"It is a world very interesting to me," Volpi said. "I discovered I was a strange writer, but it is very natural for me."