TODAY!! Physics, Astronomy & Geosciences Present Spring ’25 Seminar Series
Fri., Mar. 28, 2025 │ 11am – 12noon
Science Complex, room 1230
“The Physics of Shakespeare (IV): The “Parable” of Hamlet?”
Speaker: Dr. K. L. Jensen, Theoretical Physicist, Institute For Research & Applied Physics, University of MD, College Park
The publication by Copernicus of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium inaugurated the Scientific Revolution some five years before the death of Henry VIII, a timing that also overlapped the onset of the Protestant Reformation. England experienced protestant persecution under Mary I, and catholic persecution under Elizabeth I and James I. Societal turbulence was in tandem with revolutions in science that challenged much of Peripatetic philosophy. Three particular notions (uncertainty, harmonics, and atomism) – the last of which was expressly heretical and opposed by ecclesiastics – would evolve to form the backbone of one of the most successful theories of physics (quantum mechanics), and all three scientific concepts were alluded to in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark. London was home to leading figures in physics and science, notably Francis Bacon and Thomas Harriot (one well-known to posterity and the other not) who themselves and via their patrons were familiar to the courts of Elizabeth and James. In addition to being an exceptional playwright and an actor, Shakespeare was also an astute observer. His plays (Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth and Tempest in particular) were full of references to ideas in physics swirling about London and the Continent at the time: a focus on the play Hamlet motivates speculation about why Shakespeare wanted to allude to them and was so bloody good at doing so. This presentation will explore both the physics and the speculation.
Tags: Research
Categorised in: General
This post was written by Charles, Amanda G.