Oxygen

Beschreibung

Was treibt Wissenschaftler an? Der Konkurrenzkampf, das Bestreben etwas Neues als erster zu entdecken, ist eine wichtige Motivation. Die moralischen Konsequenzen werden in dem Stück "Oxygen" behandelt, in dem es um die Entdeckung von Sauerstoff geht, dem für das Leben auf der Erde wichtigsten Element. Im Zentrum des Stückes stehen chemische und politische Revolutionen sowie der Nobel-Preis, der 2001 zum 100. Mal vergeben wird. Das Stück spielt 1777 und 2001; zur Aufführung werden drei Schauspieler und drei Schauspielerinnen benötigt, die elf Personen darstellen. Die Urauffühung wird im Frühjahr 2001 in San Diego stattfinden, die deutsche Premiere im September.
Die weltberühmten Autoren Carl Djerassi und Roald Hoffmann bürgen aufgrund ihrer Erfahrungen als Wissenschaftler - Carl Djerassi ist bekannt als "Vater der Pille" und Roald Hoffmann erhielt 1982 den Nobelpreis für Chemie - und als Schriftsteller - Djerassi schrieb mehrere erfolgreiche Romane, Hoffmann viel beachtete Lyrik - für Kompetenz und Spannung.

Autor*in

Carl Djerassi

Themen in »Oxygen«

Belletristik / Lyrik, Dramatik, Essays Chemie Chemistry Communication & Media Studies Geschichte der Chemie History of Chemistry Kommunikation u. Medienforschung

Stimmen zu »Oxygen«

"As the play's cover notes declare, 'the ethical issues around priority and discovery at the heart of this play are as timely today as they were in 1777. Harold Varmus, Nobel Prize in Medicine, comments 'With wit, scholarship, and stage craftsmanship, Oxygen shows us how much scientists have learned about the world and how little they have changed.'" Advanced Materials & Processes, July 2001
 
"Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffman make perhaps the greatest discovery of all: that while science and technology advance in leaps and bounds, despite their strokes of genius, people remain human, with all of their aspirations, their foibles, and their follies." Canadian Chemical News
 
"...for sheer intellectual pleasure, have a breath of 'Oxygen'." Chemistry & Industry
 
"Oxygen manages to flit between the present and the past to yield a very entertaining parable about scientific discovery and the allocation of priority." The Alchemist
 
"The book of the play is stylishly produced with elegant typeface and contains illustrations of the projections used in the play. The cover is evocative of a breath of the fresh air. If you have not seen the play, I thoroughly commend the book to you."
Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 2002; Vol. 27, No. 1
()

"In their play "Oxygen," chemists Djerassi and Hoffmann successfully employ ingenious dramatic devices to explore the multiple facets of the process of scientific discovery and to tell the fascinating stories of the men who made the "chemicl revolution" and of their wives as well."
 
Murray Gell-Mann (Nobel laureate of Physics)
 
"A play that burns more brightly than its subject: the complexity of the most human theme in science. What is the nature of greatness? And whom do we honor: the one who made it first, who published it first, or who understood it first? Three eminent men and three indispensable women--with their modern counterparts forced to judge. But Djerassi and Hoffmann teach us that only we can judge this question without an answer, but filled with probing insights into the nature of our lives, our loves, and our accomplishments."
 
Stephen Jay (Evolutionary biologist, palaeontologist and best-selling author)
 
The authors, two of the world's best chemists, have teamed up to take advantage of an impending, real historical event, the centenary of the Nobel Prizes, to create a fascinating, imaginary encounter in 1777 between three of the best chemists in history---the contenders for the discovery of oxygen---as they are considered more than two hundred years later for the first "Retro-Nobel." With a winning mixture of wit, scholarship, and stage craftsmanship, Carl Djerassi
and Roald Hoffman show us how much scientists have learned about the world and how little they have changed, as the complex process of discovery is revealed as a genuinely human and social endeavor with timeless qualities.
 
Harold Varmus (Nobel laureate of Medicine)
 
This play is about scientists and science history, but also about the much broader question of the nature of discovery: is it finding a tree or seeing the forest?
 
Jean-Marie Lehn (Nobel laureate of Chemistry)
()

Details

Link teilen