The Possibility of Probability: An Exploration of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s Ideas of Absurdity Through the Theories of Warner Heisenberg Anonymous College

Several hundred years following the production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Tom Stoppard took it upon himself to expand on the characters who take on the roles of Hamlet’s best friends in his absurdist play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The two characters float in and out of scenes that crossover with their appearances in Hamlet while also passing several scenes outside of their sister play’s world during many of which both make attempts to process the meaning behind their existence and their role to play in the world in relation to what is occurring around them. Werner Heisenberg addresses a similar, but more scientific, version of this question in the third chapter of his book Physics and Philosophy: “The Copenhagen Interpretation of “Quantum Theory,” playing with the idea of possibility versus actuality and challenging the imagination of the reader in their ability to comprehend knowledge that is frequently accepted as fact, pushing them to a place of thought comparable to that of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. While in the process of reading Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead it is useful to consider Heisenberg’s “The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory” as a lens for interpreting these...