Niels Bohr Atom

Niels
Bohr
Revised Edition
Niels
Bohr
Atomic Theorist
Revised Edition
Ray Spangenburg and

Diane Kit Moser
Niels Bohr: Atomic Theorist, Revised Edition
Copyright 2008, 1995 by Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser
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Spangenburg, Ray, 1939

Niels Bohr: atomic theorist / Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit MoserRev. ed.
p. cm.(Makers of modern science)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 13: 978-0-8160-6178-5 (acid-free paper)
ISBN 10: 0-8160-6178-5 (acid-free paper)
1. Bohr, Niels Henrik David, 18851962. 2. PhysicistsDenmarkBiography.
3. PhysicsHistory. I. Moser, Diane, 1944 . II. Title. III. Series.
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Contents
Preface x
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xiv
1 The Making of a Physicist (18851911)

Soccer and Science
1
5
Conversations Overheard 6
Duality: A Lifelong Theme 10
Plunging into Physics 12
Brilliant Beginnings and Loss 15
2 Mysteries of the Atom (19111912)

Interlude in Cambridge
20
22
Criticizing the Great J. J. 23
Rutherford and the Story So Far 24
Doing Physics in Manchester 27
Teamwork: Rutherford and Bohr 30
Exploring Atomic Structure 32
3 Birth of Bohrs Atom (19131924)

The Black Body Dilemma
37
39
Using Quantum Physics 42
The Story of Spectra 43
What Are Spectra? 45
Fate of a Paper: ... Atoms and Molecules 48
A Look at Bohrs Model 49
Back to Manchester 52
Ripple Effect and Two Offers 54
Enter Einstein 55
4 Bohr and Einstein:
Battle between Friends (19251929) 59
Paulis Exclusion Principle 60
An Unlikely Friendship: Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung 60
Wave-Particle Duality 62
Heisenberg: Uncertainty and Quantum Theory 64
The Clock in a Box 66
5 The Spirit of Copenhagen (19301938)

Exploring Atomic Structure
71
72
Bohr and the Atomic Nucleus 73
The Physicists Parody of Faust 75
Intellectual Heights at Bohrs Institute 77
Bohr v. Einstein: The Great Debate 77
Tragedy and a World at War 79
6 Open Door to the Nuclear Age (19381945) 83

Lise Meitners Insight 84
Heisenberg: A Question of Ethics? 86
Escape 88
Copenhagen, the Play 89
Physicists Called to Battle 90
7 The Final Years (19451962)

Public Life: Search for a Better World
94
94
Letter to the United Nations 97
Physicists, Particle Physics, Openness, and Peace 99
Shrinking Circle of Friends 103
Niels Bohr and the Pursuit of Truth 105
8 Rethinking Bohrs Physics

What Are Strings?
107
109
The Universe Both Big and Small 109
The Impossible Dream? 111
Conclusion: The Legacy of Niels Bohr 113
Chronology 117
Glossary 121
Further Resources 125
Index 135
Preface
S cience is, above all, a great human adventure. It is the process of

exploring what Albert Einstein called the magnificent structure
of nature using observation, experience, and logic. Science com-
prises the best methods known to humankind for finding reliable
answers about the unknown. With these tools, scientists probe the
great mysteries of the universefrom black holes and star nurseries
to deep-sea hydrothermal vents (and extremophile organisms that
survive high temperatures to live in them); from faraway galaxies to
subatomic particles such as quarks and antiquarks; from signs of life
on other worlds to microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses here
on Earth; from how a vaccine works to protect a child from disease to
the DNA, genes, and enzymes that control traits and processes from
the color of a boys hair to how he metabolizes sugar.
Some people think that science is rigid and static, a dusty, musty
set of facts and statistics to memorize for a test and then forget.
Some think of science as antihumandevoid of poetry, art, and a
sense of mystery. However, science is based on a sense of wonder
and is all about exploring the mysteries of life and our planet and the
vastness of the universe. Science offers methods for testing and rea-
soning that help keep us honest with ourselves. As physicist Richard
Feynman once said, science is above all a way to keep from fooling
yourselfor letting nature (or others) fool you. Nothing could be
more growth-oriented or more human. Science evolves continually.
New bits of knowledge and fresh discoveries endlessly shed light and
open perspectives. As a result, science is constantly undergoing revo-
lutionsever refocusing what scientists have explored before into
fresh, new understanding. Scientists like to say science is self-cor-
recting. That is, science is fallible, and scientists can be wrong. It is
easy to fool yourself, and it is easy to be fooled by others, but because

Preface xi
new facts are constantly flowing in, scientists are continually refining
their work to account for as many facts as possible. So science can
make mistakes, but it also can correct itself.
Sometimes, as medical scientist Jonas Salk liked to point out,
good science thrives when scientists ask the right question about
what they observe. What people think of as the moment of discov-
ery is really the discovery of the question, he once remarked.
There is no one, step-by-step scientific method that all scien-
tists use. However, science requires the use of methods that are sys-
tematic, logical, and empirical (based on objective observation and
experience). The goal of science is to explore and understand how
nature workswhat causes the patterns, the shapes, the colors, the
textures, the consistency, the mass, and all the other characteristics
of the natural universe that we see.
What is it like to be a scientist? Many people think of stereotypes
of the scientist trapped in cold logic or the cartoonlike mad scien-
tists. In general, these portrayals are more imagination than truth.
Scientists use their brains. They are exceptionally good at logic and
critical thinking. This is where the generalizations stop. Although
science follows strict rules, it is often guided by the many styles and
personalities of the scientists themselves, who have distinct individu-
ality, personality, and style. What better way to explore what science
is all about than through the experiences of great scientists?
Each volume of the Makers of Modern Science series presents the
life and work of a prominent scientist whose outstanding contribu-
tions have garnered the respect and recognition of the world. These
men and women were all great scientists, but they differed in many
ways. Their approaches to the use of science were different: Niels
Bohr was an atomic theorist whose strengths lay in patterns, ideas,
and conceptualization, while Wernher von Braun was a hands-on
scientist/engineer who led the team that built the giant rocket used by
Apollo astronauts to reach the Moon. Somes genius was sparked by
solitary contemplationgeneticist Barbara McClintock worked alone
in fields of maize and sometimes spoke to no one all day long. Others
worked as members of large, coordinated teams. Oceanographer
Robert Ballard organized oceangoing ship crews on submersible
expeditions to the ocean floor; biologist Jonas Salk established the
xii Niels Bohr
Salk Institute to help scientists in different fields collaborate more

freely and study the human body through the interrelationships of
their differing knowledge and approaches. Their personal styles also
differed: biologist Rita Levi-Montalcini enjoyed wearing chic dresses
and makeup; McClintock was sunburned and wore baggy denim
jeans and an oversized shirt; nuclear physicist Richard Feynman was
a practical joker and an energetic bongo drummer.
The scientists chosen represent a spectrum of disciplines and a
diversity of approaches to science as well as lifestyles. Each biogra-
phy explores the scientists younger years along with education and
growth as a scientist; the experiences, research, and contributions of
the maturing scientist; and the course of the path to recognition. Each
volume also explores the nature of science and its unique usefulness
for studying the universe and contains sidebars covering related facts
or profiles of interest, introductory coverage of the scientists field,
line illustrations and photographs, a time line, a glossary of related
scientific terms, and a list of further resources including books, Web
sites, periodicals, and associations.
The volumes in the Makers of Modern Science series offer a
factual look at the lives and exciting contributions of the profiled
scientists in the hope that readers will see science as a uniquely
human quest to understand the universe and that some readers may
be inspired to follow in the footsteps of these great scientists.
Acknowledgments
W e would like to thank the many people who helped form

this book, including Felicity Pors of the Niels Bohr Institute,
our tireless editor Frank K. Darmstadt, excellent photo researcher
Suzanne M. Tibor, and our ever-positive agent, Linda Allen. We
would also like to thank physicist Shawn Carlson for reviewing the
manuscript of the first edition and making many helpful comments.
xiii
Introduction
T his book tells the story of world-renowned physicist Niels

Henrik David Bohr, the founder of modern atomic theory. It
was exciting, cutting-edge workcerebral and challenging. He was
very good at what he did. His model of the atom was creative, imagi-
native, and mathematically insightfuland it brought him the Nobel
Prize in physics in 1922.
However, his influence grew even greater as the first half of
the 20th century progressed. He persuaded Danish authorities to
establish an institute for theoretical physics, which was inaugurated
in 1921, and so began Niels Bohrs powerful secondary career as
mentor to physicists a half-generation younger, who profited from
his wisdom and built upon his strengths. They came from Germany,
England, France, Belgium, Austria, and elsewhere to experience
the atmosphere fostered therethe mix of students with comple-
mentary strengths, the endless all-night discussions, and the love of
knowledge Bohr encouraged.
His stature and charisma brought bright and competitive students
to Denmark, to the new institute he had instigated in Copenhagen.
They were attracted by his insights into the rapidly evolving model
of the atom, a building block thought by the ancient Greeks to be
indivisible. Bohr and his students and colleagues began pushing the
limits of their experiments and they soon blithely applied splitting
off small particles of the unsplittable atom to learn about its deeply
held secrets.
Like most scientists, Bohr had produced much of his most
seminal work as a young physicist and, as also is often the case,
Bohrs model of the atom was not an easy sell. At the University of
Gttingen, a major university in Germany, the word had been ban-
died about that Bohrs work was just a way of excusing ignorancea
xiv
Introduction xv
pretty negative report. However, when he had the chance to present

the model himself, even speaking in halting German, the reaction
was more favorable. After one of these early presentations about
his model of the atom, fellow physicist Max Born remarked to a
colleague that this Danish physicist looks so like an original genius
that I cannot deny there must be something to it. In Munich, Bohr
received a warmer reception, thanks to Arnold Sommerfeldwhose
enthusiasm for innovation led him to embrace Bohrs creativity.
Even though he was a little skeptical, he told his students Bohrs
mathematics held up to scrutiny and that, in itself, Sommerfeld said,
was unquestionably a great achievement.
Niels and his brother Harald, a mathematician, were athletic
as well as cerebral, and the summer that Bohr took his model on
the road in Germany, he and Harald went hiking in the Tyrolean
Alps. The year was 1914, the year that war broke out suddenly with
a German declaration of war against Russia. The two young men
doubled quickly back through Germany and took a ferry home to
Denmark, just in time. Several years passed when Bohr was forced by
the circumstances of war to abandon communication with the very
allies he had just made among the group of young German physi-
cists. It would be years before he would see some of them again. This
constriction of the open exchange of information among scientists
happened twice to Bohr. The second time would be much worse,
but between the two World Wars, much cerebral activity took place
among physicists, particularly in Denmark, Germany, and England.
From the moment they met in the 1920s, Albert Einstein and
Niels Bohr began a lifelong friendship of conversation and debate
about their differing opinions on quantum theory and quantum
mechanics. They continually poked and prodded at the questions
not yet answered and new questions kept coming up. They drew
diagrams for each other and sought to convince each other.
This brilliant period of unbridled discussion did not last long
though. Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and with
him came autocratic rule. By the late 1930s, life in Germany was no
longer safe for many people because of blatant and horrifying perse-
cution of Jews. Millions of men, women, and children were shipped
to concentration camps and executed. Many scientists fled Germany,
xvi Niels Bohr
including Albert Einstein. Bohr brought many people out of Germany

through Denmark and found them places to stay, in the institute or
in his home. It was the beginning of another era of his career, the
use of his influence to promote peace, displaying his deeply held
humanitarianism and personal courage. After World War II, Bohr
used his influence to campaign for international treaties against the
use of nuclear weapons and wrote an Open Letter to the United
Nations, which called for caution in production of atomic weapons
and encouraged development of peaceful uses of nuclear technology.
These campaigns were the natural extension of his lifelong concern
for the responsible use of the advancement of science and the place
of science in society.
This revised edition of Niels Bohr: Atomic Theorist offers new
sidebars on topics of interest, such as the tools of physics and bio-
graphical profiles. There is also new material concerning the strange
visit in 1941 by Werner Heisenberg of Germany to see Niels Bohr in
Copenhagen during the German occupation of Denmark. To what
purpose? No one really seems to know, but some experts think that
Heisenberg was attempting to find out from Bohr what progress, if
any, the Allied nations had made in developing an atomic bomb. A
sidebar explores Copenhagen, the highly acclaimed 1998 play that
probes some of the ethical concernsstill pertinent todaythat sur-
rounded Heisenbergs conduct and the relationship between science
and society in the event of war. Finally, a new final chapter takes a
look at string theory, the prevailing hypothesis (as this intellectual
endeavor might more accurately be called) that fascinated physicists
in Niels Bohrs field have turned to in an attempt at solving the para-
doxes that raised so many questions in Bohrs time.
1 The Making
of a Physicist
(18851911)
T he cold late-winter wind of 1948 swept through the sparse

woods behind the Institute for Advanced Study a few miles
outside of Princeton, New Jersey. On the institute grounds that late
afternoon only a few solitary walkers could be seen scurrying from
building to building. A battered old car backfired a short distance
away as it pulled up in front of Fuld Hall and discharged a passenger,
a tall young mathematics professor with a hurried air. With his coat
collar turned up against the wind, he rushed inside to the red-brick
warmth of Fuld Hall, carrying an overflowing armload of books and
papers from the nearby Princeton University library.
The Institute for Advanced Study, founded in 1930, had been
established, as the founders letter explained, to foster the pursuit
of advanced learning and exploration in fields of pure science and
high scholarship to the utmost degree that the facilities of the

Niels Bohr
institution and the ability of the faculty and students will permit,
with the emphasis, from the beginning, on the word advanced.
Although the founders had envisioned a kind of supergraduate
school, where the brightest faculty minds would be free to pursue
their own studies while teaching only a hand-picked group of gradu-
ate students, in reality the institute never enrolled a single graduate
student. Its students, instead, were its own brilliant and gifted
members, an international community, all holders of the highest
degrees and honors, the best scientific minds in the world. Freed from
nonacademic distractions and responsibilities, the institutes mem-
bers could concentrate solely on their own work, and they eagerly
listened to and taught not undergraduate or graduate students, but
one another, exchanging ideas with the best of their peers.
Not surprisingly, the institute drew many of the worlds fin-
est scientific and scholarly minds, both for long-term stays and
shorter visits. In 1947 the father of the Atomic Bomb, J. Robert
Oppenheimer, had become the institutes third director. Under his
leadership, as under the two previous directors, the big comfortable
offices in Fuld Hall continued to be a thriving beehive of esoteric and
often bewildering intellectual activity.
On that particular late-winter afternoon in 1948, perhaps its
most prestigious resident member was Albert Einstein.
The young mathematics professor just in from the cold hurried
through the office corridors with his armload of books and his hair
still mussed from the wind, glancing in the open door of Einsteins
cluttered office. He had promised to drop off some papers, but no
one was in. He would drop them off later.
On another floor, in another part of the building, Einstein
was also on the minds of two other men. The younger of the two,
Abraham Pais, a young scientist wearing horn-rimmed glasses, sat at
his desk, watching. The other, an older man with a large stocky frame
and the drooping face of a big, friendly bulldog, paced the room.
The older man muttered softly, his thick Danish accent making his
words almost unintelligible. He was visibly upset. He had jammed
the pipe he usually smoked into his pocket, and he seemed to be
struggling even more than usual for the right words. Finding them
hardly seemed a relief.
The Making of a Physicist
I am ... I am ... sick of myself, he muttered finally, giving the

younger man a frustrated look before stalking back to stare out the
window at the late-afternoon sky.
The younger man watched sympathetically. It wasnt the first
time that he had witnessed Niels Bohrs frustration after one of his
long and difficult discussions with Einstein. It might not have been as
hard if the two men hadnt cared so much for each other.
I am as much in love with him as you are, Einstein had once
written about Bohr to a friend. In another letter, to Bohr after their
first meeting, he wrote, Not often in life has a human being caused
me such joy by his mere presence as you did.
But, despite their affection, their heated and complex intellectual
debate had gone on now for over two decades and neither had man-
aged to change the mind of the other. Each was completely certain
that he was right. And with that certainty came constant frustration
over their mutual inability to convince the other.
A bubbling cauldron of intellectual energy, Niels Bohr didnt
take frustration easily. Pais remembered Bohrs arrival at the insti-
tute only a few weeks before. Bohr had taken a ship from his home
in Denmark. Finding himself aboard without anyone to discuss his
ideas with, he had practically exploded from the frustration. Niels
Bohr was a man who needed to talk. The first people he saw in the
institutes corridors had been Pais and Wolfgang Pauli, and he had
quickly hustled them into an office, and after silencing the talkative
Pauli, proceeded to unravel all the thoughts collected during his
ocean voyage. Pais later remembered wishing that there had been
a stenographer handy. Bohrs conversation was a veritable history
book on the evolution of ideas about the atom and its structure, ideas
that had forever changed most physicists views about reality.
Actually, conversation was a misleading word. It had been
more of a mumbled, occasionally hesitant, but always brilliant
monologue, with even the usually argumentative Pauli sitting quietly
and listening, spellbound.
Now, though, Bohr stood silently at the window. Perhaps he
hoped to catch a glimpse of Einstein on the grounds. Einstein, who it
seemed had haunted his mind ever since that first meeting in Berlin
in 1919. Einstein, who would never agree with the ideas that Bohr
Niels Bohr
felt so terribly strongly about, who would never see the world in the
way that Bohr saw it. Einstein, who would continue to go his lonely
and individual way.
The big Dane shrugged his bulky and still-athletic shoulders. He
would never win Einstein over. Never. Never! And yet ... And yet ...
The young mathematics professor dumped his armload of books
onto his desk. He was running late and was in a hurry to wrap up
his errands and get home for dinner. The wind was blowing harder
and was rattling the window of his office. A storm was coming and
he didnt like his wife to drive in bad weather. If he could get back
downstairs, he could catch her in time before she parked the car and
came looking for him in the building.
He caught a movement in the corner of his eye. Glancing up,
he saw the familiar shaggy-haired figure walk past the open door.
He started to call out, checking his desk to make certain that he still
had the papers Einstein had asked him to pick up. When he looked
up again, he could no longer see the baggy gray sweater. He debated
with himself briefly. Did you chase Albert Einstein? He moved to the
door and looked out into the corridor, but he had acted too slowly.
The shaggy figure had vanished around a corner.
Outside the institute, the skies had darkened and the wind had
picked up. Lights were going on in many of the offices. In a window
on one of the upper floors, Niels Bohr stood silently staring out at
the wind-swept grounds.
A dozen windows away, another light flicked on. Packing the
pipe that his doctors had forbidden him to smoke with tobacco he
had borrowed from one of the other offices, Albert Einstein moved
to the window and stared out.
On the grounds below a horn honked. The car door opened for
the hurried young professorand Einstein and Bohr returned to their
thoughts. They would still be puzzling for hours to come. Neither
would sleep well that night. And tomorrow they would try again.
What was this argument all about, an argument that engaged two
of the most brilliant scientists of the twentieth century in a heated
debate that Robert Oppenheimer once called the richest and deep-
est dialogue since Platos Parmenides? A debate about nothing less
than the nature of reality. And who was Niels Bohr, this tenacious
but gentle bulldog of a man who for over two decades engaged in this
great intellectual debate with Albert Einstein?
Soccer and Science

It was an important game between the world-famous Danish soc-
cer team and the top-notch team from Germany. The Danes were
attacking strongly on the German end of the field, when the direc-
tion of play turned suddenly toward the Danish teams goal, the ball
careening down the field, amid fast-moving knees, legs, and elbows.
Both teams followed in hot pursuit, when suddenly a panicked shout
came from one of the stars on the Danish team. Their own goalie, he
had noticed, was paying no attention at all!
Roused by the yell from his brother Harald, the goalie suddenly
snapped into action, blocked the ball, and stopped the German drive.
Meanwhile, the mathematical problem that he had been figuring on
the goalpost waited for another onslaught by the tireless and unstop-
pable Niels Henrik David Bohr.
The story is one that citizens of Copenhagen love to tell about
the rangy, heavy-jowled young physicist with the kind eyes, soft
voice, and razor-sharp mindits somehow symbolic of Niels Bohrs
uncanny ability to be everywhere and do everything at once. And to
bring out the best in everyone around him at the same time.
Far from the clichd image of the absentminded, unworldly sci-
entist (as the public tended to imagine his friendly antagonist Albert
Einstein), Niels Bohr loved people. He also felt strongly about issues
and delighted in intense discussion and argument. He was aggres-
sively and good-naturedly engaged in the world. Admittedly, there
were times when Bohr appeared absentmindedone famous physi-
cist today is the proud owner of a piece of charred chalk that Bohr
tried to light, mistaking it for his cigar while lecturing at a black-
board. But not because he lived in an ivory towerrather, because
he had focused so intensely and completely on communicating some
difficult idea to a befuddled but absorbed listener.
Next to science and sports, Niels Bohr loved most to talk. In
fact, he needed to talk. Many of his friends and colleagues joked that
conversation with Niels Bohr was often one-sided, with Bohr doing
Niels Bohr
most of the conversing. Talking was as important as breathing to

Bohr. Many scientists do their best work alone at a blackboard or
in a lab. Some develop their most profound ideas lost in their own
thoughts while walking through gardens or woods, or even lying in
bed in the middle of the night. Niels Bohr did his best thinking in the
heat of discussion.
Conversations Overheard
Bohr had learned the technique as a child, sitting with his brother
on the floor of the family living room in Copenhagen and listening
to his father and his friends talk. It was not just ordinary everyday
conversation that Niels and his brother Harald listened to. Their
father, Christian, was a professor of physiology at the University of
Copenhagen, an articulate and famous physician deeply interested in
science, art, and philosophy; his friends were among the intellectual
elite of Copenhagen.
Christian Bohr was politically and socially progressive. Considered
somewhat radical in his time, he was a religious skeptic and an early
advocate of womens rights. But he still held a deep reverence for the
past and its great thinkers. One of his particular favorites was the
German philosopher Goethe, whose writings he often read aloud to
his children. He was also a sports enthusiast who kept up with all of
the latest scores in English football (soccer) games and was instru-
mental in introducing soccer, then little known in Denmark, to a
wider audience.
The lively Bohr household was kept running smoothly by Nielss
mother, Ellen, a gentle woman whose quick intelligence and loving
nature embraced not only the immediate family but the many visi-
tors who came to the Bohr home. As a result, Niels and his siblings
grew up in an intellectual and social center for many of Copenhagens
liveliest minds.
Nielss father was also the son of a teacher, Henrik George
Christian BohrNielss paternal grandfatherwho had headed an
elementary school on the island of Bornholm, in the Baltic Sea south
of Sweden. Christian was born in Copenhagen in 1855 and published
his first scientific paper at the age of twenty-two, taking his medical
Family life and intellectual conversation were important to the Bohr family. Here, at age
four, Niels Bohr (right) sits for a portrait with (left to right) his sister, Jenny, his brother,
Harald (on his mothers lap), and Ellen Adler Bohr. (Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen)
degree in 1878 and receiving his Ph.D. in physiology two years later.
In 1881 he married one of his students, Ellen Adler, the daughter of
a prosperous Jewish banker and politician. Their first child, Nielss
elder sister, Jenny, was born on March 9, 1883. Their second child,
Niels Henrik David Bohr, followed soon after, on October 7, 1885.
The third, Nielss beloved younger brother, Harald, was born on
April 22, 1887.
Christian and Ellen spent portions of the early years of their
marriage in the large and stately town house owned by the Adler
family at 14 Ved Stranden in the heart of Copenhagen. Here Jenny
and Niels were born. It was a charming place, surrounded by tiny
Niels Bohr
shops and bookstores and colorful, cluttered rows of red-tile-topped

houses. Here young Niels first began to form his strong and loving
attachment to Denmark.
Across the street from the Bohr home stood a statue of Bishop
Absalon, the Danish soldier, statesman, and prelate who had
originally founded the town of Copenhagen as a fortress in 1166.
Christianborg Palace, the seat of the government, faced the familys
impressive stone-fronted house, and only a short distance away
the mooring known as Christianborg Slot was home to the color-
ful fishing boats that traveled the busy Frederiksholms Canal to the
harbor. Despite its damp and often rainy weather, Copenhagen was
a bustling and picturesque city. It captured Niels early and held him
spellbound throughout his life.
The Bohr family was well-to-do. In 1886, shortly after Christian
was appointed associate professor of physiology at the University
of Copenhagen, the young family moved into a luxurious and spa-
cious apartment adjoining the university, previously occupied by
Christians predecessor. It was here, at Bregade 62, that Harald
was born, and where Niels and his brother and sister lived happily
through the remainder of their childhood days.
Christian Bohr encouraged his children by providing oppor-
tunities for them to explore their interests. Their summers were
spent running and playing at their grandparents summer home,
Naerumgaard, just north of Copenhagen. Niels and Harald often
passed their after-school hours with woodworking projects in a shop
set up for them by their father in their home. The Bohr children grew
up in an environment that encouraged independent development,
humane compassion, and culture. Above all, Christian and Ellen
Adler Bohr passed on a great love of knowledge and its pursuit.
At a young age, Niels seemed to have a good conceptual sense
of the physical world, with a remarkable early interest in reflecting
it accurately. One day when he was about three years old, Niels
was walking with his father, when the physiology professor began
exclaiming about the way a nearby trees trunk extended up into
branches and the branches into twigs, hung with leaves. Yes,
said little Niels, but if it werent like that, there wouldnt be any
tree! And as a fifth-grade student, he painstakingly completed an
assigned drawing of a house, only after counting the number of
pickets in the fence and representing them exactly in his carefully

drafted production. While many people considered Harald to be the
brighter of the two boys, Christian Bohr recognized Nielss unique
qualities of imagination, always maintaining that Niels was the
special one of the family.
Little, if any, jealousy existed between the two brothers. They
could never say enough in praise of each other, and were inseparable
in childhood and best of friends throughout adulthood.
In later life, Nielss best friend, Ole Chievitz, would assert, when
asked what characteristics of Niels Bohr he would rate the highest:
His goodness ... Let us not give examples. Bohr would not care for
that. You must be satisfied with my word when I tell you that he is as
good in big things as in small. I am not exaggerating just because it
is his birthday when I say that I consider him the best human being
in the world.
But as a child, and even as a young man, he certainly was not a
saint. He got into fights and angrily knocked flat anyone who offend-
ed his keen sense of justiceoften administering a black eye or two.
As a boy, young Niels was perpetually in motion, described by those
who knew him as a tornado, full of energy and mischief.
Niels was not always first in his class, according to the memories
of his classmates, but he was regularly third or fourth from the top.
Although he was outstanding in mathematics and science, for him,
writing assignments were another matter, and writing remained an
agonizing task throughout his life. Most difficult of all was conclud-
ing a piece. For Bohr, there was always more to be said, and the con-
vention of ending with a summary baffled him completely. To him,
summaries seemed redundant, repeating unnecessarily, he thought,
what had already been said. He finished one early childhood essay
on the topic of metals with the sentence In conclusion, I would like
to mention uranium. In later life, someone once asked his brother
Harald, by then a well-respected mathematician, how it happened
that he had succeeded in building a career as a lecturer, whereas
Niels never had. Harald replied, Simply because at each place in my
lecture I speak only about those things which I have explained before,
but Niels usually talks about things he means to explain later.
All three Bohr children continued their education at the uni-
versity. Jenny studied history at the University of Copenhagen and
10 Niels Bohr
English at Oxford. After passing a teachers examination in 1916, she

pursued a career teaching history and Danish. For Harald and Niels,
too, a university education was the natural, expected follow-up to
completion of their studies at Gammelholm School, the elementary
and high school they both attended.
Duality: A Lifelong Theme

In 1903, Niels entered the University of Copenhagen, where he
and his brother played on the soccer team. Harald was definitely
the better soccer playerlater playing halfback on the 1908
Danish Olympic team (winner of the silver medal). Niels, though
an avid and excellent athlete, only served as reserve goalkeeper
on the university team. But, for Denmark, the Bohr brothers were
champion footballers.
During these years, Niels developed a natural ear for poetry
and memorized many stanzas in German and Danish. In addition,
he enjoyed reading philosophyincluding the Danish philosopher
Sren Kierkegaardand fiction, and he especially valued a little
book by the Danish writer Poul Martin Mller, Tale of a Danish
Student. Bohr was always fascinated with the attempts Mllers
student had made to sort out the many dualities inherent in life. As
Mller wrote,
Thus on many occasions man divides himself into two per-
sons, one of whom tries to fool the other, while a third one,
who in fact is the same as the other two, is filled with wonder
at this confusion. In short, thinking becomes dramatic and
quietly acts the most complicated plots with itself, and the
spectator again and again becomes actor.
The last line, in particular, often found its way into Bohrs con-
versations. And this fascination with dualitytwo things at once
would fill his thoughts, even his thoughts of physics, throughout
his life.
At the university, Harald and Niels took a philosophy class from
their fathers friend Harald Hffding and, following their fathers
tradition, formed a discussion group with some of their classmates.
They met over coffee or beer and often discussed the problems raised
The Making of a Physicist 11
in Hffdings classestheir conversations frequently dominated by

Niels, who held forth in his often-mumbling manner, his listeners
constantly entreating him with pleas of Louder, Niels.
Close friends from boyhood through adulthood, Niels Bohr (right) and his brother,
Harald, are shown here as students. (Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen)
12 Niels Bohr
Plunging into Physics

By 1905, at the age of 19, Niels was ready to plunge into the world of
physics. The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters had pro-
posed an award for the best paper on the surface tension of liquids,
and Niels decided to enter. Lord Rayleigh, who was a major figure in
physics at the time, had proposed that it was possible to figure out the
surface tension of a liquid if a few factors were known. If one could
take measurements of the length of the waves that formed on a jet of
the liquidsuch as might be produced by the nozzle of a hoseand
one knew the speed of the jet and its cross section, then it would be
possible to determine the amount of tension present on the surface.
Nielss father, delighted with his sons ambition, gladly volun-
teered the facilities of his physiology laboratory for the project. For
months Niels spent long night hourswhen no one would disturb
the quiet he neededproducing perfect streams of water. By heat-
ing and drawing his own glass tubing, he had devised a method for
producing a jet of water that would always have the same speed and
cross section. And he spent hours measuring and remeasuring.
Finally the deadline was nearing, and he had not begun to write.
His fatherseeing that Niels had become mesmerized by his experi-
ments and probably would never finish without interventionpacked
his son off to the Adler summer home to write, far away from inter-
ruptions and temptations to experiment further. The ploy worked. His
triumphant paper, though inconclusive, raised important questions,
extending Lord Rayleighs basic theory about the surface tension of
liquids. Niels Bohr was declared one of two winners in the competi-
tion, and four years later, in 1909, the British Royal Society published
the paper, translated and in modified form, in its Philosophical
Transactions, a heady triumph for such a young scientist, especially
for work done while still a college undergraduate.
It was an auspicious start. Bohr had begun, by accident, with a
subject that would lead unexpectedly, 35 years later, to an under-
standing of how an atomic nucleus might split, opening a door to the
tremendous explosive power of an atomic bomb and the develop-
ment of nuclear energy.
By this time Bohr had begun to immerse himself in the key issues
of modern physics. The hottest new topic in the journals, he found,
was radioactivitythe talk of all the scientific circles in France,

Germany, and England. And so for his required student presentation
on some aspect of his field, Bohr settled on radioactivity.
Much of the hubbub had begun when Niels was about 10. During
the 1890s, scientists were fascinated with cathode rays. If nearly
all the air from a glass tube sealed with metal plates at each end is
removed and then the metal plates are connected to a battery, the
emptiness in the glass tube glows. The glow stretches from the nega-
tive (cathode) plate to the positive (anode) plate, and thats why the
rays so produced are called cathode rays. (With a few adjustments,
this is the principle of todays television tubes.)
In 1895 in Bavaria, Wilhelm Conrad Rntgen was preparing for
some experiments with cathode rays when he discovered a strange
new ray being emitted through the heavy black paper he had placed
over his cathode ray tube. The ray caused a piece of paper coated
with barium platinocyanide (used in photography) to glow. He found
that the new ray could travel through walls. When he placed his hand
in the rays path, it passed through the flesh of his hand but not the
bones, which appeared as dark rods in the brightness. He called the
ray X-ray, x for unknown.
In England, at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University,
the physicist J. J. Thomson began investigating these issues. By 1897
Thomson had proved that cathode rays were not light waves, as
many scientists had assumed. These were negatively charged par-
ticles, he showed, that virtually boiled off the negative cathode and
sped straight for the positive anode, propelled by electrical attraction.
He showed that a narrow beam of cathode rays could be deflected in
both an electric and a magnetic field. What, then, could the cathode
ray be composed of?
Thomson came up with an idea that shook the very foundation
of physics and chemistry. These rays, he asserted, must be made
up of particles that he called negative corpuscles (later renamed
electrons by the Dutch scientist Hendrik Lorentz). Whats more,
Thomson said, they must be part of matter itself, part of the atom.
To physicists and chemists alike, all over the world, these pieces
of evidence began the call for a new vision of the atom, the inde-
structible building block of all matter. The atom was a very old
idea, dating back to the fifth century b.c., when two Greek thinkers,
14 Niels Bohr
Leucippus and his student, Democritus, first described it. All matter,
they said, was made of fundamental particles that could not be split
into parts. They called these particles atoms. (The Greek word
atomos means indestructible.) These tiny, indestructible particles
were the very essence of matter, they said. And each element, such
as gold, silver, hydrogen, and so on, represented a single substance
composed entirely of only one type of atom. Over the centuries this
atomic theory seemed to fit experimental results consistently, and by
the early 19th century most scientists had concluded that it depicted
an accurate view of reality. By 1895 about 76 of these elements were
known, and a Russian scientist by the name of Dmitry Mendeleyev
had observed common traits among some of them when he arranged
them by atomic weight (the weight of a single atom of an element).
He called the arrangement he came up with the Periodic Table of
Elements. With only a few alterations, his periodic table is still in
use today.
But now J. J. Thomson measured his electrons and found that
they were much lighter than hydrogen atoms, the very smallest atom
of all. (His first measurement put the new particle at 1/770th the
mass of hydrogen, but a later measurement of 1/1840th proved more
accurate.) However, according to the prevailing atomic theory, noth-
ing could be smaller than the hydrogen atom. He also found that it
didnt matter whether the cathode tube contained a vacuum or was
pumped with any kind of gas you could imagine. His electrons were
always the same.
Meanwhile, Rntgens discovery intrigued Henri Becquerel, a
Parisian expert on fluorescence, which is the natural tendency of
some substances to glow. Becquerel knew that sunlight can induce
fluorescence in some substances, and he decided to try some experi-
ments with various materials. He decided to begin with a uranium
salt, but met with a series of cloudy days and so, to save the materi-
als for a sunny day, he wrapped the uranium substance in paper and
stuck the package in a drawer with the unexposed photographic
plates. When he retrieved the materials, he was amazed to find that
the uranium salt had exposed the photographic plates, even though
the salt was completely hidden from any light. He had discovered,
quite by accident, that some substances give off another ray, similar to
X-rays, but not the same. The year was 1898. Marie Curie, a talented
young physicist working in Paris at the time, gave the name radioac-
tivity to this newfound emanation.
The implications of these discoveries, when closely examined,
set late 19th-century science into a great stir. Where did these rays
come from? What were they? Thomson had already assailed the idea
that atoms were the smallest unit of matter. Now, with the discovery
of radioactivity, the Greek atom was called even more into question.
Where could these rays be coming from other than from the atoms
themselves? If pure samples of an element could emit rays, the atoms
must be disintegrating in some way; that is, the rays must be com-
posed of part of the atom. But atoms, by the old Greek definition,
had no parts. An atom, according to Leucippus and Democritus,
was unsplittable. With the discoveries of Thomson, Rntgen, and
Becquerel, the ancient Greek view of the atom as solid and unsplit-
table had come to an end.
This was the kind of dilemma physics was facing when Niels
Bohr prepared his paper on radioactivity. He had picked out the
very area of physics that was at that moment just ready to burst into
hundreds of new avenues of investigation.
Brilliant Beginnings and Loss

Niels received his bachelors degree from the university in 1907 and
continued on as a graduate student to work on his masters degree.
For his thesis work, he chose the subject of the electron theory of
metals. By 1904, Thomson had set forth, based on his discovery of
the electron, a revolutionary new vision of the atomoften referred
to as the plum pudding or raisin-in-pound-cake model. An atom,
he said, was primarily a positively charged sphere, embedded with
negatively charged electrons, much as raisins are embedded in a plum
pudding or pound cake. These electrons, researchers began to realize,
determined how elements combined, and it began to become appar-
ent that all chemistry was ultimately a matter of electrical attractions.
Niels, working very near the cutting edge of his field, was exploring
how the theory of electrons related to the characteristics of metals.
Meanwhile, Harald, back from the Olympics, moved steadily
forward to work on his own masters thesis in mathematics, finish-
ing before his brother, in 1909. Harald then set off for the university
16 Niels Bohr
at Gttingen, where the most advanced work in his field was taking
place. Niels, who was still laboring over his thesis in June 1909, was
both a little jealous and very proud.
Upon his return to Denmark, Niels Bohr and Margrethe Nrlund married. This is a photo-
graph taken at the time of their engagement in 1911. They were close companions for
the rest of their lives. (Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen)
Once again, for Niels, writing the thesis would require getting
away from the temptation to continue researching and experiment-
ing. Upon his grandmothers death, her home at Naerumgaard had
been given away by the Adler family to become a childrens home, so
it was no longer available as a retreat. Niels went instead to a vicar-
age located on the island of Fyn, one of the main islands of Denmark.
It was the home of the father of Christian Bohrs assistant, Holgar
Mollgaard, and it turned out to offer the isolation and opportunity
for focus that Niels needed for his writing. There he pored over the
books and articles of Thomson, as well as publications by Paul Drude
and Lorentz. He succeeded in homing in on assumptions and uncov-
ered a few discrepancies in Lorentzs work (as he wrote parentheti-
cally in a letter to Harald, you know I have the bad habit of thinking
I can find mistakes in others). Bohrs innate ability to question and
put his finger on fundamental assumptions had already become an
important part of his scientists bag of tools.
Just after submitting his masters thesis, Niels took a holiday
to visit a friend, Niels Erik Nrlund, a member of the discussion
group that he and Harald had formed. There he met his friends
sister, Margrethe Nrlund, an intelligent, warm young woman with
a serene strength and a more than passing interest in science. Niels
had met his life partner, and he knew it at once.
As a lifelong friend, Richard Courant, wrote many decades
later, after Nielss death, It was not luck, rather deep insight, which
led him to find in young years his wife, who ... had such a decisive
role in making his whole scientific and personal activity possible
and harmonious.
Margrethe would become his partner in every way. Their hap-
piness together was always apparent to those who knew them, and
their marriage, which would last over 50 years, was unique. As one
biographer put it, Not only by the strength of her great personal-
ity and by her knowledge and ability in so many differing fields, but
especially by her devotion, Margrethe Bohr became the perfect and
indispensable support to her husband.
With the beginning of the school year in the fall of 1909, Harald
returned from Gttingen to continue his Ph.D. studies, and the
two brothers often studied together. Niels also began work on his
18 Niels Bohr
doctorate, choosing to continue his work on the electron theory of

metals for his thesis.
By January 1910, with Niels still lagging behind, Harald was ready
to defend his thesis in mathematics. As is still the case at many uni-
versities throughout the world, a candidate for a Ph.D. in Denmark
at that time had to answer questions before a faculty committee in
defense of the thesis. According to tradition, friends, relatives, and
colleagues frequently attended the proceedings in support, and in
Haralds case the entire room at the university was packed with a
boisterous cheering section composed of his teammates and support-
ers of his soccer team. If the members of his committee were unset-
tled by the unusual audience, they showed no sign of it, and Harald
passed his candidacy without a hitch, to the joy of the crowd.
For Niels, though, defense of his thesis, on the electron theory
of metals, was still more than a year off. Long hours of research
and, later, hours of writing once again during a six-week retreat at
the vicarage on Fyn lay between him and the moment of victory.
In June 1910 he wrote to Harald, have succeeded only in writing
circa fourteen more or less divergent rough drafts. He finally fin-
ished that summer, and in August he became engaged to Margrethe
Nrlund. But his approaching successthe formal defense of his
dissertation the following yearwould be marred by the sudden
loss of his father.
Christian Bohr had been working late at his laboratory the
night of February 2, 1911, after a supper in his home attended by
Margrethe Nrlund. He returned home about midnight, when he
began to develop sharp chest pains. Recognizing the warning signs
of a coronary attack, he called his assistant and family, but the pains
subsided. Relieved, he announced that he guessed he would have
to give up smoking for a while, but the reprieve was all too short.
Moments later he collapsed, a victim of heart failure, just days before
his 56th birthday. His remains were cremated and buried in one
of Copenhagens oldest cemeteries near the graves of the physicist
Hans rsted and the fabulist Hans Christian Andersen.
With the death of Christian Bohr, Niels lost a strong ally, just
as he embarked on a career that would have made his philosopher-
physiologist father very proud. On May 13, when Niels defended his
thesis, the opening page read: Dedicated with deepest gratitude to

the memory of my father.
Nielss introductory remarks at his defense were written in
Margrethe Nrlunds handwriting, as most of the rest of his papers
would be until he began to find young physicists he could talk into
doing the task. Bohr was never a man who thought with pen in hand.
He did his best thinking in conversation, pacing about the room,
pausing in the middle of sentences and thinking out loud. And, for-
tunately for science, he was always able to coax willing collaborators
into helping him get the words on paper.
On this occasion, however, he was unusually silent.
Dr. Bohr, a pale and modest young man, reported a newspaper
account of the event, did not take much part in the proceedings, the
short duration of which is a record.... The words Bohr had written
and the questions he had raised were literally so new and unusual
that no one was equipped to question them.
That summer, Niels Bohr spent many idyllic hours walking, hik-
ing, and talking with Margrethe and Harald. But as the Nordic days
began to shorten in September, he set off for his postgraduate work
abroad. Clearly, he would continue his work where the action was: in
Cambridge, England, academic home of J. J. Thomson. As he set sail,
he may well have been thinking of lines he often quoted from one of
his favorite poems by Hans Christian Andersen:
In Denmark I was born, there is my home,
there are my roots, from there my world unfolds ...
For Niels Bohr was a young man imbued in Danish culture, but
who, from the days when he sat listening to learned discussions at his
fathers knee, reached always outward to embrace the world beyond.
Mysteries of
the Atom
2
(19111912)
W hen Bohr arrived in Cambridge in late September 1911, he felt

exhilarated. He walked the very paths Isaac Newton and James
Clerk Maxwelltwo towering geniuses of physicsonce had trod,
and the days that lay ahead seemed to hold boundless opportunity.
Prior to his death, his father had helped arrange a grant for the
young physicists postgraduate work, to be pursued under the guid-
ance of none other than Joseph John ThomsonJ. J. to the world
(his students included)discoverer of the electron and head of the
prestigious Cavendish Laboratory. Niels lost no time making con-
tact. As soon as he had found a place to live and done the minimal
unpacking, he set off to see J. J., with a translation of his own Ph.D.
dissertation into English (done, rather badly, by a friend) and a copy
of one of J. J.s recent papers under his arm.
20
J. J. Thomson, who discovered the electron, invited Bohr to come to England to study
at Cambridge University.
(Original portrait by Arthur Hacker, A. R. A., courtesy AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives)
NielsBohr
J. J., who was 56 at the time, had already been head of the
Cavendish for 27 yearshaving taken the place of Lord Rayleigh
at the age of 28. He was only the third head of the prestigious
laboratorythe first director had been James Clerk Maxwell.
Thomson was an intense-looking man who wore wire-rimmed glass-
es and a slightly drooping mustache. His hair, a bit long, swept across
the crown, and his proper tweed coat and winged collar tended to
look disheveled, the requisite tie and cuff links in place but, like his
cluttered desk, not necessarily in order. But, for all his erudition and
famehe had won the Nobel Prize only five years earlier for his work
on the electron and was knighted in 1908his manner was genuine-
ly warm and sociable. As Niels Bohr made his way along the darkly
paneled halls of the Cavendish Laboratory and entered Thomsons
Interlude in Cambridge
During his leisure hours in Cambridge, Niels called on former
students of his fathers, attended teas and gatherings sponsored
by the ladies of the English academic community, read the works
of Charles Dickens with dictionary in hand to improve his English
(remembering the Dickens stories his father used to read when he
was a boy), and enjoyed long walks through the countryside.
After one of these autumn excursions, he wrote enthusiastically
to Margrethe, . . . and then I went on the loveliest walk for an hour
before dinner across most beautiful meadows along the river, with
the hedges ecked with red berries and with isolated wind-blown
willow-treesjust imagine all this under the most magnicent autumn
sky with scurrying clouds and blustering wind . . .
Always athletic, Bohr also joined a soccer club and, as the weather
got colder, enjoyed ice skating. Harald came for a visit at Christmas.
But as far as physics went, Bohr spent his time working on a
lusterless project on cathode ray production, suggested by Thomson.
It was not going well and seemed to hold little promise of yielding
fruitful results. Try as he might to sound upbeat in his letters, he
became restless. No one he knew in England understood Danish, and
Bohrs usual roundabout way of speaking and his soft voice didnt help
MysteriesoftheAtom
office, he might have been overcome with a sense of awe, had it not
been for his new mentors disarmingly friendly manner.
Criticizing the Great J. J.

Young Bohrs English was halting, but he began by opening
Thomsons paper and pointing out a few places where he thought
Thomson had possibly gone wrong. Bohr finished by offering
Thomson his dissertation on the application of electron theory to
metals. He hoped that Thomson might read the thesis and discuss
it with him. Perhaps he even might be willing to help Bohr get it
published in England. Thomson accepted the dissertation cordially
and placed it on top of a stack of papers on his desk.
his less-than-complete command of English. His colleagues couldnt

understand, for example, what he meant by loaded electrons (he
meant charged), and his miscommunications were often comical.
On other occasions the handicap must have been very frustrating. In
one instance, at a meeting, Thomson waved aside comments by Bohr
as useless, only to restate the same ideas in different words.
Finally Bohr could stand the suspense no longer, and he went
again to visit Thomson. The interview was again cordial, but the
dissertation remained unread, still in a stack on the directors desk.
Unknown to Bohr, Thomson was notorious for neglecting student
papers and correspondence. Also, Thomson never said so, but his
lack of interest may have grown out of the fact that since complet-
ing his own work on electron theory, he had turned to other subjects
and was no longer as involved as he once was. The fact is, he never
did read Niels Bohrs dissertation, which would not be published in a
good English translation until 1972.
Bohr left the directors ofce deeply discouraged. Things were
not going so well at Cambridge after all. Years later he would com-
ment, The whole thing was very interesting in Cambridge but it was
absolutely useless.
24 Niels Bohr
Bohr went back to his rooms elated. That evening he wrote to

his brother:
29 Sept. 1911
Eltisley Avenue 10,
Newnham, Cambridge
Oh Harald!
Things are going so well for me. I have just been talking to J.
J. Thomson and have explained to him, as well as I could, my
ideas about radiation, magnetism, etc. If you only knew what
it meant to me to talk to such a man. He was extremely nice
to me, and we talked about so much; and I do believe that he
thought there was some sense in what I said. He is now going
to read [my dissertation] and he invited me to have dinner
with him Sunday at Trinity College; then he will talk with me
about it. You can imagine that I am happy.... I now have my
own little flat. It is at the edge of town and is very nice in all
respects. I have two rooms and eat all alone in my own room.
It is very nice here; now, as I am sitting and writing to you, it
blazes and rumbles in my own little fireplace.
However, time passed, and Bohr heard no word from Thomson.
Had he perhaps gone too far, calling the great physicists theory into
question? He wrote to Margrethe, I wonder what he will say to my
disagreement with his ideas. A few weeks later he wrote her again:
Im longing to hear what Thomson will say. Hes a great man. I hope
he will not get angry with my silly talk.
Bohr was not about to let his one year in England go so badly. He
resolved to make a change, and he looked toward Manchester, which
may have seemed an unlikely choicecompared to Cambridge, the
University of Manchester was like meat and potatoes next to caviar
and wine. But for a student of physics, Manchester had one great
asset: Ernest Rutherford.
Rutherford and the Story So Far

Rutherford was an exuberant man with big hands, a big walrus mus-
tache, and a booming voice. When Ernest Rutherford had arrived
Mysteries of the Atom 25
on scholarship at the Cavendish Laboratory from his native New

Zealand, he was a brash 24-year-old with strong opinions, plenty of
ambition, and no money. He also had the qualities of a fine physics
experimentalist, which Thomson recognized immediately.
Rutherford could not have arrived at a better time. Three
months later Rntgen discovered the X-ray; three months after
that Becquerel discovered radioactivity. And a year later Thomson
discovered the electron. By this time Rutherford was working in
Thomsons lab on questions surrounding radioactivity.
In 1898, when Marie Curie reported her discovery of new radio-
active substances, one of them, radium, proved to be several million
times more radioactive than Becquerels uranium salts. Physicists and
chemists became intensely interested in the subject, and Rutherford
was in on the ground floor. In his work with J. J., he had learned just
the right techniques for discovering more about radioactivity, and he
began studying rays emitted
by uranium. What he was
trying to do was dissect the
atom. In the process he found
out something big: Uranium
gave off two very distinct
types of radiation. He called
one alpha radiation (after
the first letter of the Greek
alphabet). Alpha rays were
easily absorbed by matter.
The other he called beta
radiation (after the second
letter of the Greek alphabet).
This was a far more penetrat-
ing ray. (Paul U. Villard from
France discovered a third
even more penetrating ray in
1900, which was later named Australian physicist Ernest Rutherford, at the
University of Manchester at the time of Bohrs
gamma by Rutherford, arrival in England, was an experimental physi-
after the third letter of the cist with a strong reputation. He and Bohr, with
his theoretical insights, made a good team.
Greek alphabet.) (Library of Congress)
26 Niels Bohr
This diagram depicts Rutherfords discovery of the nucleus of an atom.
The competition was keen, as Rutherford wrote home to his

mother: Among so many scientific bugs knocking about, one has a
little difficulty in rising to the front. But Rutherford was never one to
let anything, much less a little competition, stop him. In later years his
students nicknamed him the Crocodile because, as one explained,
the crocodile cannot turn its head ... it must always go forward with
all devouring jaws. He was tireless in every quest and loved his role
as one who put endless questions to nature. His great success, as Bohr
would later say, came from his knack of forming questions in such a
way that they could produce the most useful answers.
A consummate experimentalist, Rutherford generally had little
use for theorists. They play games with their symbols, he said, but
we [experimentalists] must turn out the real facts of Nature. He had
a particular talent for experimental design and an uncanny ability to
pick out one significant fact from a mass of confusing detail. As one
colleague remarked, With one movement from afar, Rutherford so
to speak threaded the needle the first time.
Rutherford completed this early work on alpha and beta radia-

tion at the Cavendish, but by the time it was published in 1899,
he had accepted an appointment as professor of physics at McGill
University in Canada. There, in 1900, he noticed that thorium gave
off a radioactive gas, and he enlisted the help of a young chemistry
professor, Frederick Soddy, to help him identify the gas. When Soddy
examined it, he found that the gas had no chemical properties at all.
Only one element fit that description, the chemically inert gas argon.
From this evidence, according to Soddy, they reached the tremen-
dous and inevitable conclusion that the element thorium was slowly
and spontaneously transmuting itself into argon gas! Rutherford
and Soddy had discovered the stunning fact that, through radiation,
radioactive elements change themselves into other elements.
In the following years, Rutherford continued to unravel the
threads of the complex mysteries surrounding the transmutation
of the radioactive elements. This work done at McGill University
earned him, in 1908, a Nobel Prize, oddly enough, not in physics but
in chemistry.
By 1908 Rutherford had returned to England, having accepted
the position as professor of experimental physics at the University
of Manchester that he held four years later, when Bohr arrived. At
Manchester, his students tended to be mature, and most of them
already held degrees. One of them, a young German physicist named
Hans Geiger, teamed up with Rutherford, and together they began
bombarding thin pieces of gold foil with alpha particles. Most of the
alpha bombarders passed right through the foil, which was exactly
what the experimenters expected, based on Thomsons plum pud-
ding model of the atom. But some of the alpha particles struck the
gold foil and were deflected at a sharp angleoften 90 degrees or
more! This amazed Rutherford, who remarked, It was almost as
incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and
it came back and hit you. The Thomson model of the atom clearly
required rethinking.
Doing Physics in Manchester

Early in 1911 Rutherford came buoyantly to Geiger. I know what the
atom looks like! he exclaimed. Based on his results, Rutherford put
28 Niels Bohr
Two early models of the atom. In 1898, J. J. Thomson derived a model of the atom (left)
based on his discovery of the electron. He asserted that atoms were spheres of positively
charged matter with negatively charged electrons embedded in themsomething like
raisins in pound cake. In 1911, Ernest Rutherford came up with the idea that each atom
consisted of a tiny positive nucleus (right) with electrons circling somewhere outside it.
together a new idea of the atom: What if all the positively charged
particles in the atom were not spread like a fluid throughout the
atom, but lumped together in the center in one tiny core area? This
nucleus (a term he came up with in 1912) was thousands of times
heavier than an electron, so most of the atoms mass would be con-
tained there, composed of positively charged particles. An equal
number of negatively charged electrons would be found in motion
somewhere outside the nucleus. The rest of the atom would be
empty space. If the nucleus was the size of a marble, sitting in the
center of the field in an empty football stadium, its electrons would
be perched on the outer walls of the stadium. It was a compelling
ideaa sort of tiny planetary system that mirrored the larger solar
system we live in. In the bombardment experiments, most of the
bombarding alpha particles would pass straight through the com-
paratively vast areas of empty space. But a few would hit the nucleus
of positively charged particles, be repelled (since alpha particles are

also positive) and bounce back.
Rutherfords discovery of the atomic nucleus was stunning,
and it would ultimately earn him the title of the Newton of atomic
physics. But not many people paid much attention to it at the time.
In fact, in the fall of 1911, Rutherford attended an international
conference of the worlds leading physicists, the first of a series of
prestigious conferences known as the Solvay conferences (after the
man who organized the first one). And at that conference he made
no mention of his new atomic model.
When Bohr arrived in Cambridge, however, he already knew
about Rutherfords work with radioactivity from the journals he
had read and about his emerging new model of the atom, which
Bohr considered to be at the cutting edge of physics. (Of course,
not everyone, least of all Thomson, agreed.) Now Bohr thought that
perhaps it was time for a visit to Manchester. He arranged to see an
old friend of his fathers there who was also acquainted with Ernest
Rutherford. In this way Bohr got to meet Rutherford, and the two hit
it off immediately.
Bohr saw Rutherford again a few weeks later at the December 8,
1911, Cavendish Research Students Annual Dinner. As one of J. J.s
old students, Rutherford was invited to give a speech. The mood
was jolly and the menu was poshincluding turbot, shrimp, plover,
mutton, turkey, pheasant, and plum puddingno doubt with raisins.
The program included rollicking limericks sung with more gusto
than art, including My name is J. J. Thomson and my labs in Free
School Lane/Theres no professor like J. J. my students all maintain
and For an alpha ray/Is a thing to pay/And a Nobel Prize/One can-
not despise/And Rutherford/Has greatly scored/As all the world
now recognize.
Rutherford spoke enthusiastically and excitedly, and Bohr was
impressed with the charm, power, and enthusiasm with which he
described the work of C. T. R. Wilson, an experimentalist who had
invented an instrument known as a cloud chamber, used for tracking
atomic particles. With his cloud chamber, Wilson could see the paths
of charged particles visible as lines of water droplets hovering in a
supersaturated fog. He had just photographed the evidence of alpha
30 Niels Bohr
particles in his cloud chamber as they scattered from interactions with

nuclei, showing scatterings very similar to those that had preceded
Rutherfords discovery of the nucleus just a few months before.
Sometime shortly thereafter, having consulted with Harald dur-
ing his Christmas visit, Bohr made arrangements with Rutherford to
transfer to Manchester to finish his year. Rutherford welcomed the
idea, although he advised the eager young scientist to finish out his
work with Thomson first. This Bohr did, explaining to Thomson that
he should be glad to know something about radioactivity, and then
he set off for Manchester in March 1912.
Teamwork: Rutherford and Bohr

Niels Bohr was perhaps the only theorist ever to hit it off with
Rutherford. Bohrs different was the explanation Rutherford
offered in his usual brusque way. Hes a football player. In a way
that quick summary represented something important about Bohr as
a physicist: He was in every way a man who lived in the real world.
He prided himself on the literal-mindedness that helped him main-
tain his connection with the physical world while he thought about
the ideas of physics.
But Bohr and Rutherford were a strange pair, Rutherford brash
and exuberant, Bohr speaking not much above a whisper, digging in
his mind for the perfect word and, in the words of fellow physicist
C. P. Snow, on not finding it,... pauses, minutes long, in which he
reiterated a word which was clinging to his mind. The contrasts
between these two men and their problem-solving methods epito-
mized the differing styles of experimental and theoretical physicists
that emerged fully in the first decades of the centuryno two people
better typified the dichotomy than Bohr and Rutherford. Bohr the
ruminator, with enormous powers of concentration, thought things
through as he talked and frequently would hit upon an idea sponta-
neously in the middle of a conversation. He had no mechanical tal-
ent, however, for coaxing resistant laboratory apparatus into smooth
operation and exhaustive experimentation. Rutherford, by contrast,
had the intractable persistence needed to pursue a course of action
and see it through to its outcome, but lacked Bohrs ability to
daydream with purpose. In solving the serious problems of physics,

the physicist Otto Frisch would later recall that Bohr moved with
the skill of a spider in apparently empty space, judging accurately
how much weight each slender thread of argument could bear.
For Bohr, Manchester was a wonderful contrast to Cambridge.
Granted, it was not such a pretty place. The bustling industrial
city was noisy, its buildings blackened and sooty from the belch-
ing factory smokestacks. Horse-drawn drays crowded the busy,
cobblestone streets. But the physics laboratory at the university was
rapidly becoming one of the most productive in the world. And, at its
head, Rutherford created around himself an atmosphere of intellec-
tual excitement and openness in which young Bohr flourishedand
found the seeds for his own teaching style in later years. One of
Rutherfords collaborators, E. Andrade, once wrote this description
of his style: Although there was no doubt as to who was the boss,
everybody said what he liked without constraint ... He was always
full of fire and infectious enthusiasm when describing work into
which he had put his heart and always generous in his acknowledge-
ment of the work of others.
In Manchester, a young Hungarian Bohrs age, Georg von
Hevesy, took Bohr under his wing and introduced him to the life
of the lab. Hevesy had followed Rutherford to Manchester from
McGill the year before and was working on a projectproposed by
Rutherfordto separate radioactive decay products from their par-
ent substances. It turned out to be an extremely difficult challenge,
one that gave Hevesy another idea. Over the next several decades
he developed the science of using radioactive tracers in medical and
biological research. Hevesy became a good friend of Bohrs, and he
also had an extensive knowledge of chemistryespecially radio-
chemistrywhich turned out to be exactly what Bohr needed for
the work ahead.
Bohr began by taking an eight-week laboratory course, with
Geiger as one of the instructors, in the experimental methods of
radioactive research. The course ended May 3. After that, Rutherford
set him to work studying the absorption of alpha particles in alumi-
num. Bohr wrote to his brother, ... Rutherford is a man you can
rely on; he comes regularly and enquires how things are going and
32 Niels Bohr
talks about the smallest details.... Rutherford is such an outstand-

ing man and really interested in the work of all the people who are
around him....

The equipment was primitive by modern standards, and the work
was tedious, but there was always a sense of discovery in the air.
Geiger once described it as the gloomy cellar, which Rutherford
had fitted with the delicate apparatus he used for the study of the
alpha rays. Rutherford loved this room, wrote Geiger. One went
down two steps and then heard from the darkness Rutherfords voice
reminding one that a hot-pipe crossed the room at head-level, and
to step over two water-pipes. Then finally, in the feeble light one saw
the great man himself seated at his apparatus.
Each afternoon in the lab, work was set aside for tea. Rutherford
would come in, sit down, and talk. The lab group avidly discussed
politics and sports and, of course, work. Ideas always were exchanged
freely at these daily get-togethers. So much was happening in phys-
ics that no one was afraid that someone else would take his idea and
publish it first. There were plenty of vital topics for everyone.
Outside the Manchester lab, though, not many scientists had
made much of Rutherfords discovery of the nuclear atom, partly
because Rutherford himself had not made a strong case for it.
During this period, Bohr began thinking about some of what he
had learned at Manchester. Hevesy mentioned to him that the num-
ber of radioactive elements far outnumbered the available spaces
on the periodic table. Bohr remembered that, according to Soddy,
most radioactive elements were not new elements, just variants of
natural elements that were already known. (Soddy later came up
with the name isotopes, the term now used for such variants.) For
example, uranium 235, which is radioactive and very rare, is an iso-
tope of uranium 238. Bohr realized that the natural elements should
be organized in the periodic table not as they had been, according
to the weight of an element (its atomic weight) but according to
the number of protons in its nucleus (its atomic number)and that
the atomic number for the radioelements must be the same as the
natural elements with which they were chemically identical. From
The periodic table of the elements provides a scheme for organizing the elements and
their attributes in an easily referenced display.
34 Niels Bohr
these ideas, he roughed out what is now known as the radioactive

displacement law. Basically, this law states that when an element
emits an alpha particle (a helium nucleus, having the atomic number
2) through radioactive decay, it moves two places to the left on the
periodic table (down in atomic number); when it emits a beta par-
ticle, it moves to the right one place (up in atomic number because,
as an energetic electron, the beta particle leaves behind an extra
positive charge in the nucleus).
Bohr was excited when he had worked out his calculations, and
he ran to report to Rutherford. To his surprise, Rutherford was cau-
tious. Bohr later recalled, Rutherford ... thought that the meager
evidence [obtained up to that point] about the nuclear atom was not
certain enough to draw such consequences. And I said to him that I
was sure that it would be the final proof of his atom. As it turned out
later, Bohr was right, but because of Rutherfords caution, he didnt
publish his ideas.
However, as Bohr was waiting for some radium he needed for
another alpha-scattering experiment, he came across a paper on
the energy loss that occurs when alpha particles are not scattered
by a collision with a nucleus but pass through a metal instead (as
the vast majority of them do). It was written by another student of
Rutherfords, Charles Galton Darwin, the grandson of the great evo-
lutionist Charles Robert Darwin. Darwin had figured, correctly, that
most of the energy loss was caused by encounters the alpha particles
made with electrons. But he hadnt considered how or even whether
the electrons might be moving. Instead, he assumed that the electrons
were free. As Niels wrote to Harald, concerning Darwins paper:
It seemed to me that it was not only not quite right math-
ematically (this was however rather trifling) but quite unsat-
isfactory in its basic conception ... I have worked out a theory
about it, which, however modest, may perhaps throw some
light upon a few things concerning the structure of atoms....
I am considering publishing a little paper about it.
Bohr began his paper but didnt finish it until after he had returned
to Denmark, partly because he found some other ideas to think about
that were more exciting. By mid-June 1912, he had worked out some
more calculations and went to see Rutherford again. In a letter to

Harald dated June 19, Bohr reported what happened:
It could be that Ive perhaps found out a little bit about
the structure of atoms. You must not tell anyone anything
about it, otherwise I certainly could not write you this soon.
If Im right, it would not be an indication of the nature
of a possibility ... but perhaps a little piece of reality....
You understand that I may yet be wrong, for it hasnt been
worked out fully yet (but I dont think so); nor do I believe
that Rutherford thinks its completely wild; he is the right
kind of man and would never say that he was convinced of
something that was not entirely worked out. You can imag-
ine how anxious I am to finish quickly.
Bohr had found himself drawn to questions surrounding the
Rutherford model of the atom. There was something wrong with this
atomic model based on the discovery of the nucleus, the model that
depicted the atom as a miniature solar system.
As Rutherford had pointed out, the electron was attracted to
the opposite electrical charge of the nucleusthe electron having a
negative charge, the nucleus a positive charge. This explained why,
as the positively charged alpha particles sped toward the nucleus,
they had veered away so dramaticallybecause like charges repel.
In this configuration, an electron would move in an elliptical
orbit around the nucleus, in the same way that the planets move
around the Sun. But the idea of a moving electron seemed impos-
sibleimpossible because, according to the laws of electricity, a
moving charge must produce electromagnetic radiation (light, for
example). If all electrons produced radiation, then all matter would
radiate, which it doesnt. An even bigger problem lay in the fact
that as radiation is released by moving electrons, they should lose
energy and rapidly spiral into the nucleus. The principle is similar
to the way a satellite losing energy from the drag of the Earths
atmosphere will eventually crash into the Earth. But Rutherfords
electrons would crash into the nucleus in as little as one 10-billionth
of a second. Atoms, according to Rutherfords model, in short, must
be very unstable. But, of course, atoms are not unstable. This was
36 Niels Bohr
the dilemma that Bohr undertook to solve, and he believed he had

an answer.
He went back to his rooms to continue his calculations, but
he was running out of time. His departure from Manchester was
planned for the end of July and he was eagerly awaited in Denmark,
where he was planning to marry Margrethe Nrlund on August 1.
On July 17 he wrote Harald again:
I believe I have found out a few things; but it is certainly tak-
ing more time to work them out than I was foolish enough to
believe at first. I hope to have a little paper ready to show to
Rutherford before I leave, so Im busy, so busy; but the unbe-
lievable heat here in Manchester doesnt exactly help my
diligence. How I look forward to talking to you!
Five days later Bohr had shown his paper to Rutherford and
received hearty encouragement to continue. He left Manchester
July 24, 1912, his postdoctoral year concluded. His work, however,
had only just begun. As he headed home to Denmark, his thoughts
turned to a future filled with even greater possibilities than when he
had arrived in England the year before.
3 Birth of
Bohrs Atom
(19131924)
I n the town of Slagelse, about 50 miles southwest of Copenhagen

on the island of Sjaelland, Niels Bohr and Margrethe Nrlund were
married in a civil ceremony at the town hall on August 1, 1912.
Niels had quietly resigned his membership in the Lutheran
Church the previous April. Although he had sought out religion as
a child, by the time of their marriage he no longer was taken by it,
as he put it. And for me it was exactly the same, Margrethe later
explained. [Interest in religion] disappeared completely, although
at the time of their wedding, she was still a member of the Lutheran
Church. (Nielss parents were also married in a civil, not a religious,
ceremony, and Harald also resigned his membership in the Lutheran
Church just before his wedding, a few years later.)
Flags lined the streets of the town on the day of their wedding,
and the Nrlunds had made many preparations for a gala celebration,
37
38 Niels Bohr
but the ceremony itself was only two minutes long, performed by the
chief of police, before members of the immediate family. Harald was
the best man. When Niels heard that Margrethes mother had planned
a three-hour wedding dinner, he exclaimed, How is it really possible
to take three hours for a dinner? Cant we take the ferry at 7:00?
The ferry Niels was so eager to catch would cross the Store Baelt
from the island of Sjaelland to the Danish mainland to start the new
couple out on the first leg of their honeymoon trip to England, where
they stopped off in Cambridge. There Bohr completed his paper on
the absorption of alpha particles. When he reached Manchester on
August 12, he handed Rutherford his manuscript for publication in
Philosophical Magazine. In Manchester, Margrethe met Ernest and
Mary Rutherford, who were nearly as enchanted by her as Niels was,
delighted that he had found someone so perfectly his match. The
four became great friends.
Margrethe and Niels returned to Denmark in September, where
they settled into their new life together in Copenhagen. Bohr carried
the whirlwind style of his childhood and youth into his adult years.
As he had written to Harald from Manchester, I have so many things
that I should like to try ... One longtime friend, Jens Rud Nielsen,
looking back on that period from 1912 to 1913, recalled, He would
come into the yard, pushing his bicycle, faster than anybody else. He
was an incessant worker and seemed always to be in a hurry.
As far as prospects for an academic career were concerned, Bohr
clearly realized that, even with a fine record, he had to apply consider-
able energy if he hoped to have any position at all in his homeland, in
a field as esoteric as physics. Denmark, after all, was a small country,
and at that time the University of Copenhagen was its only university.
Only one professorship in physics existed, and that one wasnt open.
Fortunately, he had thought ahead, knowing he might need sev-
eral tries to get his foot in the door. Shortly after he received his doc-
torate, in the summer of 1911, he applied for a docentship (a much
lower paid position) in physics. He was turned down. Then, during
his stay in England, he heard that his former professor, Christian
Christiansen, was resigning, effective August 31, 1912. Bohr applied,
even though he knew that the position was much more likely to go
to Martin Knudsen, a docent who had far greater seniority. Again
Bohr was turned down. Knudsen received the appointment and
Birth of Bohrs Atom 39
recommended his own assistant as docent. Now Knudsens profes-

sorial position would not be open for many yearsuntil 1941, as it
turned outand the docentship he vacated was also filled. However,
Knudsen offered Bohr a teaching assistantship beginning in the fall
of 1912, which Bohr accepted. It was not his first, or even second,
choice, but it was a start.
The Black Body Dilemma

Meanwhile, Bohr turned his attention back to the problems that had
so intrigued him just before the end of his postdoctoral year: the
dilemma of Rutherfords atomic model.
As early as his doctoral dissertation, Bohr had recognized, as he
put it, that One must assume that there are forces in nature of a
kind completely different from the usual mechanical sort. By the
usual mechanical sort, he meant forces that classical physics had
talked about since the time of Galileo and Newton. In classical terms,
energy and matter can be thought of as moving along a ramp, in
continuous gradations, with a clear relationship between cause and
effect. But very recently, different forces had come to the attention
of physicists through the work of two men, Max Planck and Albert
Einstein. Their ideas were the stuff of which revolutions are made.
Max Planck did not seem like the revolutionary type, though.
Tall and spare, quiet and dignified, even a bit stuffy and pedantic, he
was completely devoted to tradition and authority, both in his phys-
ics and in his life. Born in Kiel, Germany in 1858, Planck had spe-
cialized in thermodynamics, and he secured an appointment at the
University of Berlin in 1889. In general, he appeared to travel pretty
much on the beaten path. In fact, when he first started his scientific
work in college, one of his professors warned him against pursuing
physics. The field, he said, was heading for a dead end. All the great
work had already been done, leaving only a few minor details to clear
up. But Max Planck was a detail man.
It so happened that one of the minor details left to tidy up in
the field of thermodynamics was known as the ultraviolet catastro-
phe, a name dramatic enough to attract anyones attention. It was the
result of problems involved in trying to understand a phenomenon
known as black body radiation.
40 Niels Bohr
A black body, in physics, is one that absorbs all frequencies of

lightsomething like a piece of coal, only blacker. However, any
object with a temperature higher than the temperature of its sur-
roundings loses heat by radiation (the emission of waves or particles
through substances). The hotter the object, the more radiation it
produces. Logically, since a black body absorbs all frequencies, it
should, when heated, radiate all frequencies equally. But that does
not happen. Instead, black bodies emit larger quantities of some
wavelengths than others. When physicists tried to explain these
results quantitatively, they came up with an equation that seemed
to work well except that it predicted an infinite amount of radiation
at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, which would be impossible,
according to the laws of physics. No one could come up with a way
to resolve the dilemma in terms of the current physical theory of the
1890s, although several people certainly had tried.
Beginning in 1897, Planck spent the next three years of his life
trying to find a solution to this problem. Finally he came up with an
idea just before a meeting of the Berlin Physical Society on October
19, 1900. He announced his finding there, and that night colleagues
from the meeting rushed to compare the figures to the values found
in experiments. They matchedwhich was very exciting news.
What Planck had proposed was that energy is not infinitely indi-
visible. Like matter, he said, energy exists not in a continuum, but in
discrete, tiny particles or packets. In other words, Planck solved the
black body radiation problem by proposing that vibrating particles
can radiate only at certain energiesnot on a continuum, as clas-
sical physics would expect. He said the permitted values could be
found by applying a constant, a universal constant, he said, which
I called h. Since it had the dimension of action (energy time), I
gave it the name, elementary quantum of action. (He used the Latin
word quantum, an adjective meaning how much, to describe this
new discrete quantity. Quanta is the plural form.) In radiation, he
maintained, only discrete energies could appear, limited to whole-
number multiples of hv; that is, the frequency (v) times Plancks
new constant, h. Today this universal constant is known as Plancks
constant. Planck calculated it to be a very small number and came
amazingly close to the modern calculated value of 6.63 times 10-27
erg-seconds. Today Plancks constant is recognized as one of the

fundamental constants of the universe.
Because the size of these quanta was in direct proportion to the
frequency, radiation at low frequencies requires only small packets
or quanta of energy. But, for a frequency twice as high, radiation
would require twice the amount of energy.
Following Plancks idea that energy can be emitted only in whole
quanta, it becomes very easy for a body to radiate at low frequencies
not that much energy has to be pulled together to make up a quan-
tum of energy. But at high frequencies, pulling a quantums-worth of
energy together is not so easy. The quantum-energy requirements to
radiate at the high-frequency end of the spectrum are so great that its
very unlikely to happen. So black bodies do not radiate all frequencies
equally, and thats the key to the ultraviolet catastrophe.
Conservative Max Planck had no heart for pushing this idea to
its natural, radical conclusions, but another, younger physicist made
use of Plancks theory in a paper, published in 1905, that would win
him the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921. That young physicist was
Albert Einstein.
If Max Planck was noted for his middle-class conservatism,
Albert Einstein was the epitome of the complete rebel, a loner who
preferred to work alone, a wanderer in the highest realms of thought,
uncomfortable with and often disdainful of the everyday preoccupa-
tions of the average man or woman. As he once explained, he sought
out science to get away from the I and the we. He preferred to
think instead about the it. Supremely confident of his own genius,
like his greatest predecessor, Isaac Newton, Einstein walked his own
way, to his own challenges, and worried little about what he called
the chains of the merely personal ... dominated by wishes, hopes,
and primitive feelings.
By 1905, at the age of 26, he had produced no fewer than five
papers, all of which were published that year by the German Yearbook
of Physics. In the first he examined a topic that would ultimately win
him the Nobel Prize. In the second, he introduced what would later
be called the special theory of relativity, one of his two most famous
contributions to physics. In the special theory of relativity, Einstein
established his famous formula E=mc2, where E is energy, m is mass,
42 Niels Bohr
and c represents the speed of light, which is always constant. This

formula showed the interrelationship of mass and energy, and by
using it, Einstein could show that the laws of physics are the same in
all reference frames that are moving at constant velocities relative to
one another. (He later succeeded in applying his theory of relativity
to the more general case of accelerated systems, establishing a new
theory of gravitation of which Newtons classic theory was a special
case. The general theory of relativity, published in 1915, held enor-
mous implications for understanding how the universe works.) In a
third paper published in 1905, he examined an aspect of statistical
mechanics and Brownian motion, the apparently erratic movement
of pollen in fluids. Another two explored further aspects of special
theory of relativity and Brownian motion.
But his Nobel-prize-winning work dealt with a mysterious phe-
nomenon known as the photoelectric effect, that is, the fact that
when light falls on certain metals, electrons are emitted. (It is the
principle that makes solar arrays on satellites and spacecraft work.)
But, strangely, there is no connection between the brightness of the
light and its ability to knock electrons free of the metal. Instead, it is
the color of the light that mattersits frequency. No one had been
able to explain this mystifying fact. Classical physicsthat is, expla-
nations based on what Bohr would call forces in nature of the usual
mechanical sortcould offer no explanation.
Using Quantum Physics

That is where Einstein stepped in, making use of Plancks quantum
theory, which had been gathering dust for a couple of years without
too much attention. Einstein pointed out that a particular wave-
length of light is made up of quanta of fixed energy content, accord-
ing to quantum theory. When a quantum of energy bombards
an atom of a metal, the atom releases an electron of fixed energy
content and no other. A brighter light would contain more quanta,
still always of fixed energy content, causing the emission of more
electrons, also still all of the same energy content. When the lights
wavelength is shorter (and the frequency higher), more energy is
contained in the quanta and the electrons released are more ener-
getic. Very long wavelengths (of lower frequency) would be made
up of quanta having much smaller energy content, in some cases

too small to cause any electrons to be released. And this threshold
would vary depending on the metal.
Once again Plancks theory had succeeded in explaining a physi-
cal phenomenon where classical physics could not. It was the first
major step in establishing what would become known as quantum
mechanics, the recognition of the discrete and discontinuous nature
of all matter, especially noticeable on the scale of the very small.
Bohrs great insight was to see how the theory of the quantum
could be used to explain how things work within the structure of
atoms and their particlesspecifically to overcome the problem of
mechanical instability in Rutherfords model. As he left Manchester
in July, he had already arrived at the kernel of his thinking, namely
that since classical mechanics predicted instability where there
clearly was none, he would call on the quantum approach to describe
what actually occurred. Planck had first introduced quantum prin-
ciples to explain what could not be explained classically in thermo-
dynamics. Einstein had done the same for light. Now Bohr planned
to test out quantum principles as a way of explaining what went on
within the atom itself.
Once back in Denmark, Bohr worked on these ideas all during
the fall and early winter months of 1912. First, he assumed that elec-
trons could not orbit an atoms nucleus willy-nilly in just any orbit.
He proposed that stationary states, as he called them, must exist
in the atomspecific orbits that electrons could occupy without
spiraling inward and crashing into the nucleus. When he figured the
numbers for his model, he found that they coincided with several
experimental results. When scientists see this sort of coincidence
as Max Plancks colleagues also hadthey recognize that it can be
an indication that they are heading down the right path. Of course, it
also can be sheer coincidence. What bothered Bohr about his model
was that it was arbitrary. It explained some chemical phenomena,
but it seemed no more real than Thomsons plum pudding model.
The Story of Spectra

Then Bohr happened to come across a series of papers by J. W.
Nicholson, a professor of mathematics at Kings College, London.
44 Niels Bohr
This display shows emission spectra for sodium, mercury, helium, and hydrogen. Each
element displays a unique discrete spectrum, an identity marker almost like a finger-
print. This fact puzzled scientists for years until Bohr came up with his model of the
atom. Bohr suggested that electrons release energy only while making jumps from one
orbit to another (explaining the discrete spectral lines emitted by the elements). He
surmised that the electrons move only in certain allowed orbits at specific distances
from the nucleus of each element.
Bohr had met Nicholson and did not think much of his abilities, but
what startled him was that Nicholson had proposed an explanation
for an unusual spectrum in the corona of the Sun by suggesting a
model of the atom that used quantum principles. Nicholson had
made mistakes, but Bohr began to worry about competition. He had
hold of such an exciting idea, and he hoped he would have time to
work it out in detail and publish before someone else got there. So
Nicholsons paper threw more fuel on an already intensely burning
BirthofBohrsAtom
flame. More important, however, Nicholsons introduction of spec-

tra into the picture gave Bohr an idea.
He had not even considered the idea that the spectra produced
by the elements might be related to his problem. In the last interview
he gave, he said, The spectra was a very difficult problem. . . . One
thought that this is marvelous, but it is not possible to make progress
there. Just as if you have the wing of a butterfly, then certainly it is
very regular with the colors and so on, but nobody thought that one
could get the basis of biology from the coloring of the wing of a but-
terfly. And so, who would think that the coloring of spectra would
have anything to do with the basis of physics?
In the 19th century, physicists had discovered that each ele-
ment produces a characteristic spectrum of light when heated.
Sodium, for instance, emits light only at particular wavelengths
yellow, in this case. Potassium emits a violet light. And so on. In
terms of Plancks theorem, that meant that the atoms of each ele-
ment produce light quanta only of a particular energy. Physicists
what are spectra?

When a radiating material (such as a glowing, low-density gas)
emits energy, it can be identied by the unique pattern of light
emitted in a very small range of wavelengths (or frequencies) in the
electromagnetic spectrum. The pattern of several emission lines is
characteristic of the gas and is called the emission spectrum. To
the surprise of scientists investigating this phenomenon in the early
1800s, they found that each radiating substance has a unique,
characteristic emission spectrum. A continuous spectrum may
appear in cases where a smooth distribution of various light forms
such as white light. When individual atoms of the same substance
emit heat a line spectrum appears. During his Nobelwinning
theoretical work, when Bohr gured out how the structure of an
atom worked, he nally understood why hydrogen emits a single
line spectrumand researchers realized why every element emits
its own distinctive spectrum.
46 Niels Bohr
had observed that certain spectra were associated with the atoms of
certain elements, but they had never been able to explain why.
Some had found some fascinating mathematical regularities,
however. In 1885, Johann Balmer, a mathematical physicist from
Switzerland, had found a formula for calculating the wavelengths of
the spectral lines of hydrogen. Five years later Johannes Rydberg, a
Swedish spectroscopist (a specialist in producing and studying spec-
tral lines), came up with a general formula that could be used to calcu-
late several different line spectra. But these mathematical harmonies
served only to deepen the mystery; they offered no explanation.
With his model of the atom, Bohr set out to explain why. He real-
ized that the radius of an electrons orbit was determined by Plancks
constant. That meant that the amount of energy also was fixed. An
electron in a permissible orbit did not emit any radiation; normally it
occupied a stable, basic orbit that Bohr called a ground state.
But if energy was added to the atom, if it was heated, for
example, the electron would respond by jumping from one orbit
to anotherand when it did that, it changed energy states. In
response to heat, it would jump to a higher orbit, one farther from
the nucleus. If the heat was turned higher, the electron would keep
jumping to higher and higher orbits. If it was cooled off, the electron
would jump inward to a lower orbit, closer to the nucleus. Moving
to a larger orbit, it would absorb energy; moving to a smaller one, it
would emit energy. When energy no longer was added, the electron
would return to its ground state.
Bohr did the calculations for hydrogens single electron. He
worked out the energies involved for jumping from one orbit that
was permissible to another. He calculated the light wavelengths that
would be produced if the energy was converted to light. It worked!
His calculations matched the spectrum of hydrogen, which always
before had been a mystery.
This is what he came up with: Each electron emits a photon
(a quantum of light) of characteristic energy, or frequency. The
jumpsand the photon energiesare limited by Plancks constant.
If the lower-energy state (when the atom is cool and the electron
is close to the nucleus) is called W1, and the higher-energy state
is called W2, you can subtract W2 from W1 and the result is hv
In the illustration, light emitted by an incandescent bulb produces an absorption

spectrum when it passes through a sample of cool gas before striking a screen. The
gas has absorbed energy from the white light of the bulb, as indicated by the dark lines
on the screen. From the pattern of dark lines, it is possible to tell which frequencies
the gas has absorbed. Because every element has a unique spectrum, the gas can be
identified from the pattern. When an element is heated, it gives off (emits) energy that
can be displayed in the same way, producing a similar emission spectruma negative,
or inversion, of the absorption spectrum. The bottom figure shows the emission and
absorption spectra of hydrogen.
(Plancks constant, h, times the frequency, v). Bohr saw this and,
using the formula W2 - W1 = hv, he was able to come up with
Balmers series. He also found that with a slightly more complex
formula, using nonarbitrary numbers, representing the mass of the
electron, its charge, and Plancks constant, he could come up with
Rydbergs experimental values!
48 Niels Bohr
Fate of a Paper:
... Atoms and Molecules
As always, Bohr had great difficulty bringing his paper to conclu-
sion. It was getting too long for publication in any journal. Finally he
decided to divide it up into three parts. (For this reason, it usually is
referred to as the trilogy.) After Bohr had finally finished Part I, On
the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules, he anxiously sent it off to
Rutherford on March 6, 1913, and held his breath. In the meantime,
he continued to write and rewrite the other two parts.
When Rutherfords letter, dated March 20, finally arrived, Bohr
tore it open and scanned it quickly. With the first sentence, he
breathed a great sigh of relief.
I have received your paper safely and read it with great inter-
est, wrote Rutherford, but I want to look over it again carefully
when I have more leisure. Your ideas as to the mode of origin of the
spectrum of hydrogen are very ingenious and seem to work out well.
But Rutherfords role was to critique and so he did: ... but the mix-
ture of Plancks ideas with the old mechanics make it very difficult
to form a physical idea of what is the basis of it. And a bit later, he
raised a thorny question in a characteristically direct way:
There appears to me one grave difficulty in your hypothesis,
which I have no doubt you fully realize, namely, how does an
electron decide what frequency it is going to vibrate at when
it passes from one stationary state to the other? It seems to
me that you would have to assume that the electron knows
beforehand where it is going to stop.
Overall, though, Rutherford thought the paper should go off to
the Philosophical Magazine. He offered to clean up the English for
Bohr, and, since he thought it was much too long and wordy, he con-
cluded somewhat casually with the comment, I suppose you have
no objection to my using my judgment to cut out any matter I may
consider unnecessary in your paper? Please reply.
Bohr didnt know what to say in reply. He had labored over every
sentence, every word of the paper, and was certain that nothing could
be cut out without damaging the meaning drastically. But how could
he convey a hands-off message to Rutherford tactfully? Finally he
wrote back that he would be glad for any alterations you consider
suitable, apologizing for any trouble he might have caused, and
then concluded offhandedly, I now have some holidays and I have
decided to come over to Manchester. It was a totally unplanned trip,
in fact, but it was the only way Bohr could see out of his dilemma.
When Bohr reached Manchester, he was greeted warmly and the
two sat right down to work, Rutherford with the idea that at least
one-third of the manuscript could be jettisoned. Bohr tenaciously
defended the existence of every sentence. Section by section they
went through the paper. Section by section Rutherford was won
over. In the end, he made only a few corrections to Bohrs English
and sent the paper off intact. Later, he loved to tell the story of Bohrs
bulldog defense of his words and how he had finally had to give in to
the gentle if tenacious Dane.
The second part in Bohrs 1913 trilogy bore the title Systems
Containing Only a Single Nucleus, and the third, Systems
Containing Several Nuclei. All three parts were published by the end
of 1913, and Bohrs trilogy became seminally important to physics. It
not only offered a highly useful model of the atom, but it showed that
quantum mechanics was a fundamental part of how nature worked.
While the mechanistic physics of Newton had worked well on larger
scales, it could not account for subtleties on the atomic scale. For this
work, Bohr would win the 1922 Nobel Prize in physics.
A Look at Bohrs Model

Bohr knew that his model was only a very sketchy approximation of
reality, however. Otto Frisch would later recall, Bohr himself was very
much aware of the crudeness of that model; it resembled the atom no
more than a quick pencil sketch resembles a living human face. But he
also knew how profoundly difficult it would be to get a better picture.
Late in his life Bohr would reflect, It was clear, and that was the
point about the Rutherford atom, that we had something from which
we could not proceed at all in any other way than by radical change.
And that was the reason then that [I] took it up so seriously.
It was radical. It is the threshold of what became known as the
heroic age of quantum physics. And the reaction was enormous.
Frisch would later recall, That picture was so astonishing and
50 Niels Bohr
In 1913, Niels Bohr proposed a model of the atom with electrons confined to specific
circular orbits around the nucleus.
unorthodox at the time that a number of physicists ... had sworn to

give up physics if that nonsense was true (none of them did).
Rutherford himself continued to be cautious. In March 1914 he
said, While it is too early to say whether the theories of Bohr are
valid, his contributions ... are of great importance and interest.
And in August, N. Bohr has faced the difficulties by bringing in the
idea of the quantum. At all events there is something going on which
is inexplicable by the older mechanics.
The old guard was unlikely to be ecstatic. Lord Rayleigh, past 70
by that time, was uninterested. J. J. Thomson did not even comment
on Bohrs 1913 papers until 1936.
Even Einstein, a young radical himself, was lukewarm at first.
Hevesy told him the news in September 1913 in Vienna, to which
Einstein replied that Bohrs work seemed very interesting and impor-
tant if righta polite way of expressing skepticism. Then Hevesy
told him about the spectral lines, and Einstein brightened. This is
an enormous achievement, he said. The theory of Bohr must then
be right.
Many years later, when Einstein was almost 70, he wrote:
That this insecure and contradictory foundation [of physics in
the years from 1910 to 1920] was sufficient to enable a man of
Bohrs unique instinct and tact to discover the major laws of
the spectral lines and of the electron shells of the atoms togeth-
er with their significance for chemistry appeared to me like a
miracleand appears to me as a miracle even today. This is
the highest form of musicality in the sphere of thought.
Einstein and Bohr would not meet for another seven years, but
during the years that followed publication of Bohrs 1913 trilogy,
Einstein kept track of Bohrs work through his writings. He also
gathered news from a young physicist named Paul Ehrenfest, of
Amsterdam, who struck up a friendship with Bohr by letter in 1918.
In a postcard to Max Planck in 1919, Einstein wrote, Ehrenfest tells
me many details from Niels Bohrs Gedankenkche [thought kitch-
en]; his must be a first-rate mind, extremely critical and far-seeing,
which never loses track of the grand design.
Harald wrote from Gttingen that people were reading Nielss
work with interest, but many seemed to think his premises were
too fantastic and too bold. Meanwhile, Bohr spoke at a meeting
in Birmingham, England, on September 12, 1913, the first time he
presented his work at an international meeting. The write-up in the
journal Nature said, Dr. Bohr ... arrived at a convincing and bril-
liant explanation of the laws of spectral series.
By the winter of 1914, the University of Copenhagen, impressed
by now, invited him to submit his application for appointment as
professor of theoretical physics. It would be the first time that theo-
retical physics was taught at Copenhagen as a separate science, and
it was exactly what he wanted. Bohr submitted his application March
4 and wrote to Rutherford, asking for a recommendation, which
Rutherford sent back, filled with praise, by return mail. Approval by
the faculty was almost unanimous.
52 Niels Bohr
But, before the appointment was actually in place, Bohr received

another letter from Rutherford that changed everything. An appoint-
ment of a two-year readership was available in Manchester, with a
stipend of 200 pounds. Rutherford wrote, I should like to get a
young fellow with some originality in him. Namely, Bohr.
Back to Manchester
Premonitions of war were brewing in Germany at this time, but for
the most part, people thought war was unlikely, and Bohr couldnt
pass up an opportunity to work directly with Rutherford. He quickly
arranged with the University of Copenhagen to wait two years for
him and made preparations to head back to Manchester.
On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-
Hungary was assassinated by a Serb extremist. Austria-Hungary
issued an ultimatum to the Serbian government, and Germany prom-
ised support. Tensions that had been seething for years suddenly sent
the world to the brink of war. Russia mobilized against Austria, and
on August 1, Germany declared war on Russia. Denmark, as always,
was vulnerable. German and British fleets prowled the waters, and
one sea battle took place on August 28. Travel to Manchester now
looked risky.
But by September, although war in Europe continued, travel
between Denmark and England by sea again seemed safe, and the
Bohrs set out for Manchester. There Bohr produced another paper
for the Philosophical Magazine in 1915, On the Quantum Theory of
Radiation and the Structure of the Atom, strengthening the points
of his previous work. As before, the work in Manchester was exhila-
rating, intense, and always productive. To Bohr, it was an object les-
son in how he might run his own department of theoretical physics
in Copenhagen, when he returned.
By 1916, as Bohr was preparing his notes and papers to return
to Denmark, the war had grown grimmer. Rutherford sent a letter
with Bohr to protect his notes from confiscation, certifying that they
were intended for English scientific publication. Although the guns
in Europe roared on, the Bohrs returned safely home.
Papers by other scientists were beginning to come out that were
offshoots of Bohrs theory, and he was having to work hard to keep
ahead. Three years had passed since his famous trilogy had been
published, and confirming experimental results were beginning to
pile up. So were the offers. Before the year was out, Bohr had received
an invitation from the University of California to spend a year there.
Soon after, the University of Manchester invited him to join its fac-
ulty. But the war made California an unlikely destination, and Bohr
asked Manchester to wait a few months for his decision. Meanwhile,
in November 1916, the Bohrs had their first son, Christian, an event
they both rejoiced in greatly. Five other children, all boys, would fol-
low in the years to come: Hans Henrik (born in 1918), Erik (1920),
Aage Niels (1922), Ernest David (1924, named after both their good
friend Rutherford and Nielss maternal grandfather), and Harald
(1928). Bohr loved his children and always managed to spend time
with them, despite his fast-paced schedule.
Throughout 1916, Bohr continued to work on publications, find-
ing them difficult to complete, as always, and he continued an active
correspondence with Rutherford, the news of whose research he
followed with great interest. But now his attention was also greatly
drawn to his teaching. At first his classes in theoretical physics drew
only a handful of advanced students, primarily those interested in
quantum theory. (Knudsen, the only other physics professor at the
university, had no use for quantum theory. One student who took
classes from both of them recalled Knudsens sharp response to a
question involving it: If we have to use quantum theory to explain
this, we may as well not explain it.) Gradually, as Bohr delved more
and more into atomic theory in his classes, faculty members began
turning up too. The discussions went deep and Bohr pushed his stu-
dents thinking, chalk in hand, furrowed brow, expectant smile, wait-
ing for the next thought. His was a kindly, responsive face. Abraham
Pais, a physicist from Holland who later became his biographer, once
wrote of his first meeting with Bohr, My first thought was, what a
gloomy face. But this first impression melted immediately. Those
who knew Bohr were captured by the sunny, warm smile and the
animation that came to his face when he talked.
By 1917 Bohr had approached the university about an idea he
hadthe establishment of a small institute for theoretical physics as
part of the university. Soon after the wars end, the plan was approved.
Bohr was able to raise about $20,000 toward the construction of a
54 Niels Bohr
building, and Copenhagen made a site available adjacent to a park near

the center of the city. In his enthusiasm, Bohr immediately invited the
Rutherfords to the inauguration, which was still several years off.
Ripple Effect and Two Offers

All these plans nearly toppled, however, when a letter arrived from
Rutherford. It had been delayed by the disruption of the mails caused
by the confusion as the war ended. It was marked private and confi-
dential. Rutherford was offering Bohr a permanent position as pro-
fessor of mathematical physics at a new center for modern physics
research at Manchester. He wrote:
You know how delighted we would be to see you working with
us again. I think the two of us could try and make physics
boom. Well think it over and let me know your mind as soon
as you can. Possibly you might think of visiting us as soon as
the seas are clear.
Rutherford concluded his letter, I wish I had you here to discuss
the meaning of some of my results on collisions of nuclei. I think I
have got some rather startling results.
This last was Rutherfords strongest card. What a team they
might make! It was an opportunity without parallelwonderful and
impossible at the same time. Niels and Margrethe hurried to discuss
the new turn of events with Harald. They talked all day and into the
night. In the end, though, there was no question. Bohr was a Dane,
and he could not turn his back on Denmark, when the country had
offered him everything he had asked for. He had to stay and build his
own center for modern physics research, in Copenhagen. Bohr felt,
at that moment, that he might not be making the best decision either
for his scientific work or his familys financial welfare. Working with
Rutherford, he might accomplish insights he might never have on his
own, and Denmark could not offer him the salary that the English
university could. But he made the only ethical decision he could
make. Rutherford did not give up immediately, but in the end, Bohr
stayed to build an institute for Denmark.
And build he did, from the ground up. Every detail of the
architects drawings had to meet with his approval. He went to the
site every day to oversee the

progress during construction,
and he watch-dogged at every
turn. He may have driven the
architect and construction
crews crazy, and he certainly
slowed the progress, but in
the end the institute was built
exactly to his specifications.
Rutherford, meanwhile,
was offered the directorship
of the Cavendish Laboratory
at Cambridge, which he
accepted. Bohr took time off
in July 1919 to visit him and
consult with him about his
work. He also lectured in
Holland, where he and other
Already by the 1920s, when this photo was
physicists talked about atom- taken, Bohr had become well known and
ic problems nonstop. Arnold respected for his ability and intensity.
(Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen)
Sommerfeld, the first of the
German scientists to venture
into the previously neutral countries, went to Copenhagen, where he
and Bohr talked about quantum theory and atomic structure.
For a time the institute ran out of construction funds, as costs
raced sky-high in the postwar economy. Always resourceful, Bohr
obtained a grant from the Carlsberg Beer Company in Copenhagen,
and construction resumed.
Enter Einstein
Despite his busy schedule, when Max Planck invited him to go to
Berlin to lecture on spectral theory at the Physikalische Gesellschaft
(Physics Society), Bohr quickly agreed, and it was a decision he never
regretted. There, as he arrived at the Berlin physics building, Planck
and Albert Einstein came out to greet him. Planck looked formal and
proper, as he smiled warmly behind wire-rimmed glasses. Einstein,
with his wild halo of hair, never looked formal, on that day or any
56 Niels Bohr
other day. The three men began discussing atomic physics immedi-
ately and continued, morning to night, for the rest of the conference,
whenever they werent in meetings.
Einstein had formulated the general statistical rules for the elec-
tron jumps from one of Bohrs stationary states to another. These
jumps could occur, he said, not just in response to radiation or colli-
sion. They could occur spontaneously.
Bohr, meanwhile, suggested in his lecture on spectral theory that
an exact determination of where and when electrons jump could
not be made. This Einstein did not like. No theory should leave to
chance the time and determination of fundamental processes, he
maintained. Here, already, the two great minds began to take diver-
gent paths. Their conversations revolved around these themes and
left a deep impression on Bohr, as he continued to mull them over
in his thoughts.
With his mastery for coordinating apparently contrasting expe-
rience, Bohr later wrote, without abandoning continuity and cau-
sality, Einstein was perhaps more reluctant to renounce such ideals
than someone for whom renunciation ... appeared to be the only
way to proceed with the immediate task of coordinating the multi-
farious evidence regarding atomic phenomena.
Two days after the end of the conference, Einstein wrote to
Ehrenfest, Bohr was here, and I am as much in love with him as you
are. He is like an extremely sensitive child who moves around in this
world in a sort of trance.
And to Einstein, Bohr wrote, To meet you and talk with you was
one of the greatest experiences I ever had.
In September 1921, the inauguration of the Institute for
Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen took place, and Bohr became
its head at the age of 36. From the time the institute was built,
the Bohrs lived in a flat on the upper level of the research centers
only building. In 1924, Bohr bought a summer home as a retreat in
Tisvilde on the island of Sjaelland (where Copenhagen is located),
40 miles northwest of the Danish capital, near the shore of the
Kattegat strait, which lies between Denmark and Sweden. An old
gamekeepers home, the house was a one-story cottage with a
thatched roof. Its name was Lynghuset, meaning heather house,
and it was nestled among rolling hills dotted with heather shrubs
The Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen was a single, lonely building waiting
for students at the time of its inauguration in 1921. (Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen)
and high pine forests. A small one-room cabin, which they called
Pavillonen (the pavilion), stood nearby the housethe perfect place
for Bohr and his colleagues to work undisturbed. The peaceful sur-
roundings of Tisvilde provided the Bohrs with the ideal summer
retreat, a much-needed place to get away from the pressures of their
intense daily life.
But from the start Bohrs life revolved around the new institute.
There, like a magnet, Bohr drew the best young minds from all over
the world. Georg von Hevesy, from his days at Manchester, was one
of the first of many foreigners Bohr invited to come to Denmark
to work in the new institute. Fueled with the exciting discoveries
of radioactivity, quantum theory, and relativity, in its first 25 or 30
years the 20th century witnessed an enormous outpouring of ideas
and discoveries unparalleled in the history of physics. A dynamic
cluster of men and womenambitious, brilliant, keenly prepared,
and talentedgathered in the universities of Europe, Britain, and,
to a lesser degree, Canada and the United States to ride the crest
of a great wave of exploration into the inner regions of the atom.
Niels Bohrs institute rapidly became a point of reference for all
these young physicists, led by the man who came to be known as
the Gentle Dane.
58 Niels Bohr
Nielss easygoing sense of humor and charismatic way of draw-

ing ideas out of people stimulated endless discussion. As Otto Frisch,
who was a young student at the institute, described him:
He had a soft voice with a Danish accent, and we were not
always sure whether he was speaking English or German; he
spoke both with equal ease and kept switching. Here, I felt,
was Socrates come to life, tossing us challenges in his gentle
way, lifting each argument to a higher plane, drawing wisdom
out of us which we didnt know we had, and which of course
we hadnt.
As a teacher and mentor, he was unrivaled.
4 Bohr and Einstein:
Battle between
Friends
(19251929)
D uring the 1920s and 1930s, the Institute for Theoretical Physics
in Copenhagen, headed by Bohr, commanded an influence
over the world of scientific thought equaled only by Aristotles
Lyceum in Athens. Theoretical physicists went there from all over
the world, during a time often called the heroic age of atomic phys-
ics. These were the same yearsespecially 1925 to 1927that in
Gttingen are known as the years of Knabenphysik, boyhood phys-
ics. Breakthrough after breakthrough was made by very young
scientists: Werner Heisenberg, at 23; Wolfgang Pauli, at 25; Paul
Dirac, at 22. At 37, Erwin Schrdinger, by contrast, seemed out of
place. All of these found their way to Niels Bohrs institute and felt
the influence of Bohr the mentor, himself only in his early 40s. One
by one, each carved out a place for himself in the quantum physics
59
0 NielsBohr
hall of fame. The year 1925, in particular, was a great year in physics,
especially quantum physics.
Paulis Exclusion Principle

Wolfgang Pauli was clumsy in the lab and faltering in front of a
lecture hall full of listeners. Yet his mind could pierce to the heart
of a problem seemingly without effort. He studied under Arnold
Sommerfeld at the University of Munich, where he did his doctoral
work, and then pursued postgraduate studies both in Copenhagen
with Bohr and at Gttingen. (Later he moved to the United States,
an unlikely friendship:
wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung
Of all the young and brilliant men who orbited Niels Bohr, Wolfgang
Pauli was one of the more enigmatic and colorful. Quite aware of his
own brilliance, he published a 200-page article on relativity for The
Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences when he was only 21 years
old. Einstein himself was greatly impressed, writing in 1922:
Who ever studies this mature and grandly composed work
would not believe that the author is a man of twenty-one. One
does not know what to admire most: the psychological un-
derstanding of the evolution of ideas, the accuracy of math-
ematical deduction, the deep physical insight, the capacity
for lucid systematic presentation, the knowledge of literature,
the factual completeness, or the infallibility of criticism.
It was heady praise on which to start a career.
Demanding much of himself, Pauli also demanded much from his
scientic colleagues. His scathing criticismsI dont mind you think-
ing slowly, but I mind your publishing much faster than you thinkare
still quoted today. Many of his letters were signed The scourge of
God, and he could often be seen, as he listened to papers being pre-
sented by his colleagues, leaning forward in his chair, his oversized
head bobbing up and down as he analyzed each line of reasoning.
Bohrandeinstein:BattlebetweenFriends
joining the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and becoming

a citizen in 1946.)
His great insight, known as Paulis exclusion principle, came to
him as he was battling a problem known as the anomalous Zeeman
effect. Moody and dejected while visiting Bohr, he replied snappishly
to Margrethe Bohrs solicitous inquiry, Of course I am unhappy! I
cannot understand the anomalous Zeeman effect.
Pauli based his work on an enormous pile of data, in which he
discerned a simple sorting-out principle that held true in all cases:
In any system of elementary particlesfor example, the collection
of electrons within the atomno two particles may move in the
Still, though caustic, his criticisms were eagerly sought, and

getting Paulis approval automatically made someones day.
Brilliance, though, does not guarantee an easy life, and for
much of his life Pauli fought deep depression that began in his
early thirties when his much-loved mother committed suicide in
1927 and his rst marriage to a nightclub singer ended in a bitter
divorce in 1930. Close to a nervous breakdown and following his
fathers advice, he sought the help of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung,
being analyzed rst by one of Jungs assistants and then by Jung
himself. It was the beginning of a surprising relationship between
the two men that lasted for many years and included the publication
of a volume of joint essays. Erudite and well read, Pauli had always
managed to keep philosophy out of his physics but had long sought
some deeper understanding of life. Jungian analysis and its quasi-
scientic approach to opening doors of perception obviously struck
a chord with Pauli and, under Jungs instructions, he even kept a
careful record of more than 1,000 of his dreams.
While it appeared disquieting to many that Pauli, the razor-sharp
rationalist, should become a part of Jungs mystical worldview, the
relationship obviously meant much to Pauli. As Pauli lay dying, Jung
was the only person Pauli wanted to see on his deathbed.
62 Niels Bohr
same way, that is, occupy the same energy state. He announced this
Exclusion Principle in 1925.
The Exclusion Principle explained why electrons in an atom do
not all drop down to the orbit nearest the nucleuswhich might
normally be expected, since an electron traveling along the small-
est, closest ring requires the least amount of energy to complete an
orbit. According to Paulis principle, once an electron is in an orbit, it
excludes any other electron from occupying the same orbit. Over the
years Paulis Exclusion Principle has proved to hold true for nuclear
particles that no one had even dreamed of, and it has been a key con-
cept in the development of quantum mechanics. Pauli received the
Nobel Prize in physics (somewhat belatedly) for this work in 1945.
Wave-Particle Duality
In Paris, meanwhile, Louis de Broglie proposed an idea, known as
the wave-particle duality, that ended up bothering Albert Einstein
a great deal. De Broglie maintained that if atomic particles were
also thought of as waves,
not just particles, the conse-
quences theoretically were
very nice, even though the
idea is mind-boggling.
According to Planck and
Einstein, light, which had
most recently been regarded
as a wave, should be regarded
as a particle. Now de Broglie
was saying that particles
photons, electrons, even
atomssometimes behave
like waves. Outlandish as this
sounds, experimental tests
bear out de Broglies theory.
The idea immediate-
ly caught on among many
Erwin Schrdinger is best known today for a
paradox he called Schrdingers Cat. (Francis
physicists. In 1926, Erwin
Simon, courtesy AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives) Schrdinger came up with
Bohr and Einstein: Battle between Friends 63
an equation that accurately described the way an electron behaves.

Schrdinger interpreted his equation, known as wave mechanics,
to represent that electrons are de Broglies waves. Swept up in the
wave concept, Schrdinger wanted to abandon completely the idea
that electrons are particles.
But on this point Schrdinger was wrong. Schrdingers theory
of wave mechanics worked beautifully, and physicists loved it for its
perfect accuracy, but in June of the same year, Max Born published a
paper that instead gave electron waves a probabilistic interpretation.
Born said the rise and fall of waves could be taken to indicate the
rise and fall in probability that the electron behaved as a particle.
In this brief, basic paper, Born went straight to the crux of the
problem of cause and effect. In the macroworld of classical mechan-
ics, cause and effect might work as a principle, but not in the subtle
microworld where quantum mechanics ruled. Regarding atomic col-
lisions, Born wrote:
One does not get an answer to the question, What is the state
after collision? but only to the question, How probable is a
given effect of the collision?... From the standpoint of our
quantum mechanics, there is no quantity which causally fixes
the effect of a collision in an individual event. Should we hope
to discover such properties later ... and determine [them] in
individual events?... I myself am inclined to renounce deter-
minism in the atomic world, but that is a philosophical ques-
tion for which physical arguments alone do not set standards.
Basically, Born had abandoned causality in the classical sense.
Leon Lederman, one of the worlds top physicists in the 1990s, calls
Max Borns interpretation the single most dramatic and major
change in our world view since Newton. Yet Schrdinger was not
happy with Borns idea at all, and neither were many other classical
physicists of his day. Borns probability meant that the determin-
ism promised by Newtons laws of physics could no longer be relied
upon. Coupled with quantum theory, it meant that only probabilities
could be knownabout anything you wanted to measure.
By 192627, Albert Einstein, who already had a towering repu-
tation in physics, began to reject many of the bizarre implications
of quantum mechanics. Replying to one of Borns letters, Einstein
64 Niels Bohr
wrote: Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice

tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory produces a good
deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One. I am at
all events convinced that He does not play dice.
In February 1927, Einstein gave a lecture in Berlin, in which he
reportedly said, What nature demands from us is not a quantum
theory or a wave theory; rather, nature demands from us a synthesis
of these two views which thus far has exceeded the mental powers
of physicists.
But Bohr, Sommerfeld, Heisenberg, and others took Borns ideas
in stridethe concepts seemed logicaland they and their colleagues
continued the exciting work of trying to get all the pieces to fit. It was
great teamwork. It was also the beginning of a friendly but impassioned
lifelong debate between Bohr and Einstein, which would continue for
more than a quarter of a century until Einsteins death in 1955.
Heisenberg: Uncertainty
and Quantum Theory
The issues heated up in March 1927, when Werner Heisenberg pro-
duced another amazing physical theory: the Uncertainty Principle.
According to that principle, the exact position and precise velocity
of an electron could not be determined at the same time. In other
words, no one can tell for certain where an electron will go when it
is hitall that can be said is where it probably will go. Only statistical
predictions can be made.
This idea capped off the great scientific revolution we call quan-
tum theory. (Although much remained to be wrapped up and quan-
tum field theory is still evolving today. Some scientists contend that
the theory will not be complete until it is fully combined with gravi-
tation, and many have attempted to formulate a unified field theory
that would accomplish this goal.) The work of Born, Schrdinger
and Heisenberg formed the basis for quantum mechanics, which has
been used to interpret chemistry and subatomic physics with great
success. Yet Einstein never accepted the Uncertainty Principle, and
he debated long and ardently with Bohr about it.
In September 1927 Bohr attended a meeting in Colma, Italy.
(Einstein had been invited, but he did not attend.) There, on
September 16, Bohr outlined for the first time the principle he
called complementarity:
The very nature of the quantum theory ... forces us to regard
the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the
union of which characterizes the classical theories, as comple-
mentary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing
the idealization of observation and definition, respectively.
Bohr maintained that a phenomenon can be looked upon in
two mutually exclusive ways, and yet both outlooks can remain
valid in their own terms. For
example, you may know the
momentum or the position
of an electron, but not both.
As his student Frisch put it,
It is a bit as if reality was
painted on both sides of a
canvas so that you could only
see one aspect of it clearly at
any time. Complementarity
would become the corner-
stone of Bohrs thinking
about quantum and classical
physics, his way of reconcil-
ing two equally plausible but
mutually exclusive ideas.
Brilliant, vital, and excit-
ing ideas, the emerging con-
cepts of quantum physics
were also unsettling. Even
Bohr, having put quantum to
its first use in the physics of
matter, recognized the theo-
rys enormous mysteries. Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr talked fervently
It makes me quite giddy whenever they could find the time, exploring
the complexities of atomic physics together,
to think about these prob- such as this opportunity, probably at the
lems, a visitor once com- Solvay Conference of 1930. (Paul Ehrenfast,
courtesy AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives,
plained to Bohr. But, but, Ehrenfast Collection)
NielsBohr
The Clock in a Box

At the fth Solvay Conference in October 1927, all the founders of
the quantum theory were present: Max Planck, Albert Einstein (a
founder in spite of himself), Niels Bohr, Louis de Broglie, Werner
Heisenberg, Erwin Schrdinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Paul Dirac.
At session after session, Einstein sat silent. At one point he
voiced a simple objection to the probability interpretation. Then he
fell back into silence. He had declined an invitation to give a paper
on quantum statistics at the conference.
But not all the important discussions took place on the oor of
the meetings. As described by Otto Stern, the informal discussions
in cafs and breakfast rooms tended to exude far more vitality:
Einstein came down to breakfast and expressed his misgiv-
ings about the new quantum theory, every time [he] had in-
vented some beautiful experiment from which one saw that
[the theory] did not work . . . Pauli and Heisenberg, who were
there, did not pay much attention, ach was, das stimmt
schon, das stimmt schon [ah, well, it will be all right, it will
be all right]. Bohr, on the other hand, reflected on it with care
and in the evening, at dinner, we were all together and he
cleared up the matter in detail.
The debate continued at the next Solvay Conference (on magne-
tism), held in 1930. Einstein came prepared. He had been thinking,
and he believed he had come up with an example that disproved the
validity of the uncertainty principle. Imagine, he said, that you have a
box. A hole in one of the walls of the box can be opened and closed
by a shutter, which is controlled by a clock inside the box. You ll
the box with radiation and weigh the box. Set the shutter to open
just long enough for a single photon to escape. Afterward, weigh
the box again. At this point, Einstein maintained, the experimenter
has succeeded in nding both the photon energy and its time of
passagewhich is exactly what Heisenbergs uncertainty principle
says cannot be done.
Bohr was stumpedshocked, in fact. With his clock-in-a-box
thought experiment, Einstein had apparently found a way around the
dilemma of uncertainty that Heisenberg had posed. As one observer
later wrote:
During the whole evening [Bohr] was extremely unhappy, go-
ing from one to the other and trying to persuade them that it
couldnt be true, that it would be the end of physics if Einstein
Bohrandeinstein:BattlebetweenFriends
One of Bohr and Einsteins most puzzling thought experiments was the
clock-in-a-box.
were right, but he couldnt produce any refutation. I shall nev-

er forget the vision of the two antagonists leaving . . . : Ein-
stein a tall majestic figure, walking quietly, with a somewhat
ironical smile, and Bohr trotting near him, very excited.
(continues on next page)

NielsBohr
(continued from previous page)

By the next morning, however, the tables were turned. Bohr
had an answer. He had realized a point that Einstein, ironically, had
forgotten: that one of the subtle effects of Einsteins general theory
of relativity was the production of the very time uncertainty the
thought experiment was supposed to disprove. Bohr used Einsteins
same idea of a clock in a box, but he added realistic experimental
details that Einstein had not bothered with. Later he used a diagram
to illustrate the point. The initial weighing is done by recording the
position of a pointer attached to the box suspended from the scale,
which is attached to a xed frame. The weight measurement is
uncertain (with the pointer returning to its initial position when the
photon escapes). And the uncertainty of the position of the clock in
the gravitational eld also implies another uncertainty in the determi-
nation of time.
Bohr had showed that if you actually performed the experi-
ment, with real equipment, the accuracy with which the energy of
the photon is measured would restrict the precision with which its
moment of escape can be determined. Einsteins thought experi-
ment did not violate the uncertainty relations for energy and time,
after all. Bohr provided details on all the facets of the apparatus that
would be required to take the measurements in a classical physics
setting. Heavy bolts hold the frame steady. The spring keeps the
box mobile in the gravitational eld. The weight of the box readjusts
the position.
but . . . Bohr stammered ingenuously, if anybody says he can think

about quantum theory without getting giddy it merely shows that he
hasnt understood the first thing about it!
As the brilliant American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman
used to say to his students, I think it is safe to say that no one under-
stands quantum mechanics. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you
possibly can avoid it, But how can it be like that? because you will
go down the drain, into a blind alley from which nobody has yet
escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.
During the years from 1925 to 1929 Bohr gave many lectures on
this complex topic, and his listeners valiantly strove to follow along.
But not everyone was successful at keeping up. As Richard Courant
recounted, at one point during the grand period of the evolving

quantum theory Bohr was laid up from a skiing accident, with only
Harald and Courant to listen to him. Bohr began trying to explain to
them the just-evolving ideas about basic principles of quantum phys-
ics and complementarity. But when the two nonphysicists got lost,
they interrupted for an explanation of some incomprehensible points.
It was a typical Bohr lecture such as we all have experienced so often,
Courant said, excitingly inspiring, though neither acoustically nor
otherwise completely understandable. When interrupted, though,
Bohr protested angrily: Of course you cannot understand what I try
to say now; this may perhaps become understandable, but only after
you have heard the story as a whole and have understood the end.
Bohrs ability to think literally had served him once again.
Sometimes his literal-mindedness crept into strange contexts, how-
ever. One of Bohrs young colleagues from those days recollected
times when he and his friends would talk Bohr into an evening at
the movies:
We had great preference for bad films. Sometimes we could
entice Bohr to come with us to see a Western or a gangster
film we had selected. His comments were always remarkable
because he used to introduce some of his ideas on observations
and measurements. Once, after a thoroughly stupid Tom Mix
film, his verdict went about as follows: I did not like that pic-
ture; it was too improbable. That the scoundrel runs off with
the beautiful girl is logical; it always happens. That the bridge
collapses under their carriage is unlikely, but I am willing to
accept it. That the heroine remains suspended in mid-air over
a precipice is even more unlikely, but again I accept it. I am
even willing to accept that at that very moment Tom Mix is
coming by on his horse. But that at that very moment there
should be a fellow with a motion picture camera to film the
whole businessthat is more than I am willing to believe.
These were years of great discovery. Naturally, debate ensued.
It is the job of science to question, and Einstein and others who
questioned were doing their jobs as scientists, just as those who
set forth hypotheses were doing their jobs. As the physicist Robert
Oppenheimer would later write of this period in physics:
70 Niels Bohr
Our understanding of atomic physics, of what we call the

quantum theory of atomic systems, had its origins at the
turn of the century and its great synthesis and resolutions
in the nineteen-twenties. It was a heroic time. It was not the
doing of any one man. It involved the collaboration of scores
of scientists from many different lands, though from first to
last the deeply creative and subtle and critical spirit of Niels
Bohr guided, restrained, deepened and finally transmuted the
enterprise. It was a period of patient work in the laboratory,
of crucial experiments and daring action, of many false starts
and many untenable conjectures. It was a time of earnest cor-
respondence and hurried conference, of debate, criticism and
brilliant mathematical improvisation. For those who partici-
pated it was a time of creation. There was terror as well as
exaltation in their new insight.
5 The Spirit of
Copenhagen
(19301938)
D uring the early 1930s, Bohr guided the physicists of his insti-
tute into the realm of theoretical nuclear physics. The new
era began in August 1928, when George Gamow, a talented young
physicist from Odessa, stopped at Copenhagen on his way back
to the Soviet Union after his postdoctoral work in Gttingen. As
he later told the story, he detoured to Copenhagen to meet Bohr,
but had only $10 in his pocket, lodging for only one night, and no
food. He urgently told Bohrs secretary that he had to see Bohr that
dayhe could not afford to stay longer. So Bohr met with Gamow
and discussed with him the paper on gamma rays that Gamow had
been working on in Germany. Then Bohr said, My secretary told
me you cannot stay more than one day because you have no money.
Now if I organize for you a fellowship... would you stay for a year?
71
72 Niels Bohr
Yes, I would, Gamow replied quickly. And so it was done, on the

spot, and Gamow stayed not one but two years, from 192829.
During the last month of his stay, Gamow completed his book on
radioactivity and atomic nuclei. It was the first book on theoretical
nuclear physics ever written. So began an era of nuclear investigation
at Bohrs institute.

It was a field full of major activity in the 1930s. The stage had been
set by Rutherford, in England, in 1919. Continuing his experiments,
he decided to try firing alpha particles through a tube of nitrogen gas.
When he examined the results, he discovered something strange. In
addition to his alpha-particle bullets (emitted naturally by radioac-
tive radium), he found particles that had the same properties as
hydrogen nuclei, even though the tube contained no hydrogen.
(These particles later were called protons.) Rutherford concluded
that the alpha particles had struck a few nitrogen nuclei and split
the hydrogen nuclei away. While the discovery of radioactivity had
shown that certain atoms could disintegrate spontaneously in nature,
In 1930, Bohr and his institute held a conference that was well attended, with many of
the participants numbering among the most productive scientists in the world. Seated in
the front row, left to right: Oskar Klein, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli,
George Gamow, Lev Landau, and Hendrik Kramers. (Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen)
The Spirit of Copenhagen 73
this was the first evidence that ordinary (nonradioactive) atoms were
not indestructible. Over the next five years, with his colleague James
Chadwick, Rutherford tried similar experiments skimming off pro-
tons from the nuclei of 10 different elements with alpha bullets.
From these experiments they began to realize that the nucleus was
not just a tiny positively charged entity; they were probing it, and if it
could be probed, and chunks could be broken off in this way, it must
have an internal structureit must be composed of particles. The
question was, what particles?
Perhaps, Rutherford hypothesized, there was a third, neutral,
atomic particle not yet discovered. It was a reasonable idea, since
protons alone could not account for the atomic weight of any atom
except hydrogen. Lithium, for example, has only three protons, and
yet its atomic weight is seven. The negative charge of electrons bal-
anced the protons positive charge. Yet the mass of electrons, the
only other known particle, was negligible. Where did all the rest of
the weight come from?
Irne and Frdric Joliot-Curie, in the tradition of Irnes par-
ents, Marie and Pierre Curie, also were actively exploring atomic
structure, in Paris. In their experiments they had been bombarding
beryllium with alpha particles, and they were getting a strange par-
ticle they thought was a type of penetrating radiation, like a gamma
ray. Bohr wrote to Rutherford, however, that he didnt think they
were right. James Chadwick, who was working with Rutherford, tried
a similar series of experiments. He spent day and night at the lab for
three weeks straight, finally coming up with proof of the existence of
Rutherfords neutral particle.
Rutherford shot the news off to Bohr, who was delighted. In
Copenhagen, he and his colleagues confirmed the results. The neu-
tron was discovered, successfully accounting for all the excess weight
on the periodic table.
Bohr and the Atomic Nucleus

Bohr now became intrigued by the dynamics of the nucleus, and in
April 1932 he gave a lecture on the neutrons properties. He wrote
to Heisenberg, drawing him into the quest, and Heisenberg sat down
and roughed out a basic proton-neutron model of the nucleus. The
74 Niels Bohr
Bohr took mentoring seriously, challenging his students and colleagues with a soft
voice and big questions. In this photo, Bohr (left) meets with James Franck (center)
and Hans Marius Hansen. (AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives, Margrethe Bohr Collection)
basic idea, he wrote to Bohr in June, is to shove all difficulties of

principle onto the neutron and then apply quantum mechanics to
the nucleus. It was a beginning.
During these years, Bohr was at the nexus of communication
among colleagues all over the world, and his interpretative advice
was greatly respected. He loved a paradox: Out of paradox, he
believed, would come progress. And he had a talent for giving focus,
meaning, and direction to lines of inquiry. In this way, he influenced
the scientific process in nearly every country in the world.
By this time the study of nuclear physics began to demand ways of
accelerating the bombarding particles more effectively, and in England
John Cockroft and Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton invented the first
particle accelerator in 1929. By 1935 Bohr had negotiated for a similar
model for the institute at Copenhagen, and design studies began for
its construction. Though the laboratory was small, Bohr wanted it to
remain on the cutting edge of the field of nuclear physics.
ThespiritofCopenhagen
The Physicists Parody of Faust

Despite Bohrs stature and inuenceby now he had received doz-
ens of awards, including the Faraday medal, in addition to the Nobel
Prizehis rapport with his students and colleagues remained high-
spirited and open, as evidenced by the following parody of Faust,
staged by some of his students for an annual September celebra-
tion, sometime in the early 1930s. Wolfgang Pauli played the part
of Mephisto, and the Lord, played by another student, is obviously
meant to represent Bohr, who was present in the audience:
BOHR (the Lord):

Hast thou naught else to say?
Comest thou ever with complaining?
Is physics never to thy mind?
PAULI (Mephisto):
Nay, tis all folly! Rotten, as ever, to the core!
Een in my days of dule it grieves me sore
and I must ever plague these physicists the more.
B.: (In the mixture of German and English he always used
when excited): Oh, it is dreadful! In this situation we must
remember the essential failure of classical concepts . . .
muss ich sagen . . . just a little remark . . . what do you
propose to do with mass?
P.: Whats that got to do with it? Mass? We must abolish it!
B.: Well, thats very, very interesting . . . but . . . but
P.: No, shut up! Stop talking rubbish!
B.: But . . . but
P.: I forbid you to speak!
B.: But Pauli! Pauli! Were really much more in agreement than
you think! Of course, I quite agree! Only . . . Certainly, we
can abolish mass. But we must uphold load. . . .
P.: What for? Why? No, no, thats wishful thinking! Why not abol-
ish load, too?
B.: I must ask . . . I understand perfectly, of course . . .
but . . . but
P.: Silence!
B.: But Pauli, you must really give me a chance to finish what
I have to say! If both mass and load are abolished, what
have we got left?
(continues on next page)
NielsBohr
(continued from previous page)

P.: Oh, thats quite simple! What weve got left will be the
neutron!
(Pause. Both pace to and fro.)
B.: Its not to criticize, its but to learn.
I take my leave now, later to return.
(Exit.)
P.: (Soliloquizes):
I like to see the old chap now and then and take good
care we dont fall out. Its jolly decent of so grand a Lord, I
must say, when he comes himself for a nice chat with Pauli!
(Exit.)
Meanwhile, Bohr had been working on a new theory, featuring

what he called a compound nucleus. The idea that the nucleus was a
single rigid body, he said, was incorrect and misleading. Further, he
maintained, nuclear reactions took place in two stages. In the first
stage, during bombardment of a nucleus by a projectile, the projec-
tile (of whatever kindalpha particle, neutron, and so on) merges
with the nucleus, forming a compound nucleus. In the second stage,
this compound nucleus comes apartin one of three ways. It may
disintegrate into the original particles that made it up, unchanged by
the bombardment. Or it may break up into the same particles, but
excited (that is, raised to a higher energy level). Or it may form new
particles (through nuclear reaction). Bohrs ideas received rapid and
wide acceptance in the nuclear physics community and produced
considerable impetus for further testing and extension of his model.
In December 1931, Niels Bohr was invited to become a per-
manent resident at the Residence of Honor on the grounds of the
Carlsberg breweries, an honor bestowed for life on the citizen of
Denmark considered the most prominent in the sciences or the arts.
The vote by the governing committee in this case was unanimous.
Niels and Margrethe moved to Carlsberg in the summer of 1932, with
their six sons; their first house guests, appropriately, were Ernest and
Mary Rutherford, who visited in September of that year.
Intellectual Heights at Bohrs Institute

By 1935 Otto Frisch had arrived in Copenhagen and was deeply
impressed by the vibrant man who ran the institute. As Frisch wrote
in his memoirs:
Niels Bohr was fifty then and at the height of his powers, both
mentally and physically. He was heavily built, but when he
thundered up the stairs two steps at a time we young ones
found it hard to keep up with him. He also beat us all at
table tennis.
In the evenings, the students usually went to Carlsberg for food
and talk.
After dinner, we would sit around Bohr, some of us on the
floor at his feet to watch him first fill his pipe and then to
hear what he said.... Our conversation ranged from religion
to genetics, from politics to modern art. I dont mean to say
that Bohr was always right, but he was always thought-pro-
voking and never trivial. How often did I cycle home through
the streets of Copenhagen, intoxicated with the spirit of
Platonic dialogue!
Bohr v. Einstein: The Great Debate

Dialogue was Bohrs strong point, and in 1935 he again had an
opportunity to try his skill against Einstein in their ongoing debate
over the quantum theory and complementarity. In that year Einstein
lodged a counterproposal, in a paper he published jointly with
Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (usually referred to as the EPR
paper, by the last-name initials of the three authors). In this volley,
Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen argued that the quantum theory was
incomplete. They proposed a thought experiment (known as the
EPR experiment) to show that all objectsand quantum objects in
particularpossess a physical reality that is independent of whether
they are observed, measured, or disturbed in any way. This is a fun-
damental point of difference between classical and quantum physics.
If a molecule composed of two atoms is taken, EPR argues, and the
two atoms are split, sending one in one direction and the other in the
78 Niels Bohr
other direction without disturbing their spins, it can be determined

by looking at onewithout looking at, measuring, or disturbing the
otherwhat the spin of the other one is.
With a classical object this would be like taking an object such as
a nickel, splitting it in half through its thickness, and mailing one half
to one person and the other half to yourself. When you got your half
in the mail, you would know by looking only at your half whether the
other person had heads or tails.
However, in the realm of the very small, if you use two mea-
surable variables that are connected by quantum mechanicslike
momentum and positionwhen you measure one, you disturb the
other so that it cannot be measured accurately at the same time.
You can know momentum or position, but not both. Those who
accept quantum theory resign themselves to this inability to know.
Einstein, however, refused all such renunciations. He called this
disturbance of one particle while looking at another ghostly action
at a distance. While he conceded that quantum theory did explain
much, he maintained it was incomplete. Bohr offered answers to
EPR, but none of them satisfied Einstein, who remained uncon-
vinced for the rest of his life.
In 1964, after both men had died, John S. Bell brought the
issue to a boil again with a general calculation for an experiment
modeled on EPR, but incorporating quantum theorys restriction.
He found that the probability of observing matching spins of the
two separated particles was different from the probability implied
by EPR. Bells theorem created a great stir, seeming to offer proof
for the quantum side of the argument. Perhaps, as Edward Speyer
suggests in his book Six Roads from Newton, the ultimate solution
will lie in interpreting parts of the setup that have not been chal-
lenged. Perhaps, like an audience at a magic show, we have been
thrown off the track by letting our attention focus on the wrong
part of the experiment.
Until recently, most physicists have accepted Bohrs comple-
mentarityalso known as the spirit of Copenhagenas the only
viable way to deal with the way things seem to work in the realm
of the very small. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, some physicists
again called Bohrs ideas about complementarity into question.
After fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany, Albert Einstein joined Princeton Universitys
Institute for Advanced Study, with which he remained affiliated for the rest of his life.
Bohr also spent some time there, and they were able to meet and continue their ongo-
ing discussions about their thought experiments.
(Alan Richards, courtesy of the Archives, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J.)
Science historian and physicist Philip Morrison perhaps set Bohrs

contribution in the clearest light when he wrote in 1985:
The history of particle physics is an account of splendid suc-
cesses, old and new, and of shortcomings and limitations too,
to be expected in any single work of our finite species. They
built a city shining upon a hill, they who half a century ago
founded the quantum mechanics of particles and fields, and
the design of this city is understood best through Niels Bohr.
Tragedy and a World at War

While Bohrs work saw continued successes and challenges, for Bohr
and his family in their private life, the years between 1930 and 1938
were filled with tragedy and sorrow. On Sunday morning, November
30, 1930, his mother died, after a long battle with cancer. After Ellen
80 Niels Bohr
Bohrs death, Nielss sister, Jenny, suffered a breakdown at the loss

and was placed in a mental hospital. Two and a half years later, on
May 5, 1933, she also died. Her death certificate diagnosed a state of
manic depression. Niels was in Pasadena, California, at the time and
heard the news by cable from Harald. Niels wrote of Jennys warm
and inspiring disposition, and both brothers felt sorrow that her ill-
ness, which she had apparently fought throughout her life, had kept
her from fulfilling the potential she clearly had. When Harald spoke
at her funeral, he described her as strong in spite of her weaknesses,
and healthy in spite of her illness.
On September 25, 1933, Bohrs good friend Paul Ehrenfest com-
mitted suicide. He had first met Ehrenfest in 1918, through cor-
respondence, and they met many times and visited in each others
homes in the years that followed. But Ehrenfest, who was also friends
with Einstein, had become distraught in recent years over the irrec-
oncilable differences between Bohr and Einstein. By 1927 he said
he felt he had to make a choice and sided with Bohr. By 1931 deep
depression had set in. In May of that year, Bohr received a letter from
him in which he said, I have completely lost contact with theoretical
physics. I cannot read anything any more and feel myself incompe-
tent to have even the most modest grasp about what makes sense in
the flood of articles and books. Perhaps I cannot at all be helped any
more. Still I have the illusion that you could show me the way in a
few days encounter. But by September he wrote again to say that he
was too depressed even to attend conferences.
Ehrenfest wrote a letter of desperation to Bohr, Einstein, Franck,
and several other of his friends in August 1933, but he never sent
it. It was found after he shot his son, Wassik, who had Downs syn-
drome, and himself in Amsterdam on September 25. Paul Dirac later
said with great regret that he should have known that Ehrenfest was
contemplating suicide, when his friend remarked to him earlier that
month in Copenhagen, Maybe, a man such as I feels he has no lon-
ger the force to live. Dirac wrote to Bohr, I now cannot help blam-
ing myself for not doing anything. Bohr also must have felt deep
regret and sorrow at this tragic loss of a friend.
Four years later Bohr lost another close friend, his great men-
tor and ally Ernest Rutherford. Bohr heard the news while he was
attending a conference in Bologna, Italy. Rutherford died quietly
on October 19, 1937, at the age of 66, from complications follow-

ing an operation for a strangulated hernia. In a talk he delivered
the next day in Rutherfords memory, Bohr said, As has been said
of Galileo,... he left science in quite a different state from that in
which he found it.... He will be missed more, perhaps, than any sci-
entific worker has ever been missed before. He would also be greatly
missed as a friend.
But the greatest tragedy of these years for the Bohrs occurred in
July 1934. Eight years earlier, Niels had purchased a yacht, the Chita,
with three friends, including his boyhood friend Ole Chievitz. The
four had spent many joyful days sailing the waters around Denmark,
setting their sails to the winds, soaking up the sun, andwith Niels
on boardalways discussing the application of physics to the phe-
nomena they saw around them, from the way the sails tacked in the
wind to the patterns of moonlight on the water.
On their first summer outing in 1934, Nielss 17-year-old son
Christian, his oldest, was on board. It all happened very fast. The seas
had been roughcertainly they had sailed before in rough waters
but on this day a huge breaker suddenly rocked the Chita from the
port side, swinging the tiller wide and sweeping young Christian
overboard. A strong swimmer, he was able to keep afloat at first, and
the men threw him a life preserver. But the turbulent waters were
too rough. The young man could not swim to it, and he finally disap-
peared beneath the waves. It was all Nielss friends could do to hold
him back from jumping after his son. By that time the seas were so
strong that he too would have drowned if he had attempted a rescue.
Finally the Chita docked at a Swedish port just south of Gteborg,
and from there Niels, with great sadness, made his way to Tisvilde
to tell the terrible news to Margrethe and the rest of the family. The
boys body was not found until the end of August.
Other deep difficulties loomed on the horizon. In Germany a
great storm was brewing. In 1933 Hitler promulgated the first of
many anti-Jewish laws, stripping non-Aryan academics of their
posts. A great number of scientistsultimately including more than
100 physicistsbegan to leave Germany.
Yet in the first 40 years of the 20th century, physics had become a
hotbed of excitement. From the first amazing discoveries about radio-
activity and its nature, to new ideas about the nature of the atom and
82 Niels Bohr
the recognition that most of its mass existed at its center; from the
wave-particle duality to the uncertainty principle to complementarity,
the surprises never seemed to cease. Strangely, the stage, it seemed,
had been set for the most astoundingfateful, its been saidevent
of all, which would take place in 1938, on the eve of World War II: the
splitting of uranium atoms, which emitted further particles, which in
turn could split other atoms, with the possibility of a chain reaction
and the release of enormous amounts of energy.
To those who were immersed in the field of physics, the news
of this unheard-of result from a laboratory near Berlin simultane-
ously sent two shivers down the spine: one, at the recognition of an
extraordinary scientific factthat the uranium atom could be split in
this way; and a second, at the comprehension of its political implica-
tions, just as Europe was entering a war with Germany.
6 Open Door to
the Nuclear Age
(19381945)
O f all those in the world of physics who were watching from out-
side Germany, Bohr was one of the first to act in response to the
deepening Nazi crisis. Physicists in Germany began receiving notes
from him, completely unsolicited, suggesting that they might want
to come to Copenhagen to visit and discuss their plans. The subtext
clearly was: I will offer you a haven and help you plan a future outside
Germany. The flow of scientists from Germany to Denmark soon
became steady, and, through his influence, Bohr found new positions
for them in the United States, England, and Sweden.
Among those Bohr helped flee from Germany was Lise Meitner,
a physicist who had been working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in
Berlin with the respected German chemist Otto Hahn. Meitner was
also the aunt of Otto Frisch, who had escaped German rule much
earlier and had been working at Bohrs institute for several years. She
83
84 Niels Bohr
left Germany in 1938, and Bohr found her a position in Stockholm at

the new physics laboratory the university was building there.
Lise Meitners Insight

For 30 years, Meitner had worked side by side with Hahn, and their
talents complemented each other perfectly. They were recognized
as a brilliant team. An experimental chemist, Hahn typically did
the laboratory work, and Meitner contributed her talents as a phys-
ics theorist to supply the theoretical analysis and interpretation of
Hahns results. Now, at 60, she was separated from both her labora-
tory and her partner who had stayed behind in Berlin. She had almost
no equipment to work with at the not-yet-built laboratory at the new
Physical Institute in Stockholm, where she had been lucky even to
find a position. So when the winter holidays approached, she gladly
accepted the invitation of
friends to visit them on the
northeast coast of Sweden
in Kunglv, the little resort
town where they lived.
Meitner had arranged
to meet her nephew Otto
Frisch in this little town. He
arrived to find his aunt deep-
ly distracted and absorbed by
a letter she was readinga
letter from her partner Hahn
in Berlin. She barely greeted
Frisch, insisting they walk
and talk as she explained the
letter to him. The two set out
in the snow, Frisch on skis
and Meitner on foot, insist-
Physicist Lise Meitner was among those whose ing that she could keep up.
escape from Nazi Germany through occupied
Denmark to Sweden was engineered by Bohr.
The two puzzled over the
She learned by mail from her colleague Otto letters news, which had just
Hahn in Berlin that he thought he had achieved
fission but could not believe it.
arrived from Germany. The
(AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives) handwriting was garbled and
Open Door to the Nuclear Age 85
the tone was excited. Meitner reached into her pockets and began
pulling out scraps of paper to scribble out a few quick calculations.
Hahn and his assistant, Fritz Strassmann, had been trying to
solve a mystery by bombarding small quantities of uranium with
neutrons. This process typically produced only a few thousand
atoms of daughter substances, new substances having a different
atomic makeup from the parent, which in this case was uranium.
Then the challenge was to identify the new substances and explain
why they were produced.
But Hahn wrote Meitner because he could not understand his
results. The fact is, he wrote, theres something so strange about
the radium isotopes [produced by the bombardment] that for the
time being we are mentioning it only to you.... Our radium isotopes
act like barium.
Hahn and Strassmann expected to split little pieces off the
nucleus, somewhat as Rutherford had, to produce substances that
were nearby on the periodic table, such as radium, with an atomic
number of 88, compared with uraniums 92. Barium, however, has an
atomic number of 56. As Frisch and Meitner walked, they realized
that Hahn and Strassmann had done the undoable. They had split
the heavy uranium atom asunder.
Both Meitner and Frisch also realized the implications of this
capability in the hands of German Nazis. The relatively enormous
quantity of energy released by splitting uranium atoms could have
great destructive power. The conclusions they had reached, making
their calculations as they sat in the snow, were also very exciting
news for the scientific community. This was news that must reach
the right people.
Frisch hurried back to Denmark. Arriving just before Bohrs
departure by steamer for a meeting in the United States, he set the
evidence before his mentor.
Oh what idiots we all have been! Oh but this is wonderful!
This is just as it must be! exclaimed Bohr, striking his hand to his
head. Excited, he encouraged his protg to publish a paper with
Meitner on their interpretation of the Hahn-Strassmann results
as soon as possible. Then he embarked for the United States. En
route, he mentioned the exciting news to a colleague, and at a meet-
ing the news leaked outbefore Meitner and Frischs paper was
NielsBohr
heisenberg: a Question of ethics?

In 1938, when Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch had opened the door
to the nuclear age with their stunning interpretation of Hahn and
Strassmanns experimental data, Germany had not yet declared war.
Now, Bohr and others assumed that nuclear ssion was or soon
would be in the hands of the Nazi military. By September 1941,
success appeared to be assured to the German cause and, in the
midst of this tense, frightening scene, Werner Heisenberg traveled
from Germany to occupied Denmark to pay a visit to Niels Bohr and
his wife, Margrethe. The two men went for a walk as they used to do
when they needed to work out issues regarding quantum mechanics
and complementarity.
This time, however, things were different. Heisenberg was one
of just a handful of scientists who did not ee the Nazi regime. He
said (as did many other non-Nazi citizens) that he was proud of his
country and its culture and wanted to stand by his homeland and
help rebuild its science, which had suffered a brain drain during the
1930s when Nazi policy discriminated against Jews, banning them
from public institutions such as universities and institutes. Heisen-
berg advanced to an administrative position in Leipzig and then
became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics.
Heisenbergs supporters point out that he was not the enemy.
During 1937, he had suffered the scrutiny of the Nazi SS, who ac-
cused Heisenberg of teaching Jewish physics, a name they used
to attack the teaching of modern theoretical physics because of
its connection with Einstein and other Jewish physicists. They also
called him a white Jew. He underwent a year-long Gestapo inves-
tigation that was daunting and frightening, but he was eventually
exonerated by SS Heinrich Himmler himself and was deemed loyal.
No one knows what Heisenberg and Bohr discussed or what
Heisenbergs goal was when he made the trip to Copenhagen.
He had accepted the position of scientic director of the German
nuclear project and was working at the time on a ssion reactor, for
the purpose, he said, of providing atomic power (not a bomb). How-
ever, he later claimed that he had believed the project required tons
of pure uranium-235 to work and he never completed the calculation
to nd out what it might require to make a bomb.
Was Heisenberg working on an atomic bomb? Was he trying to
throw Nazi engineers and scientists off the trail to success with ssion
and the bomb? Or was his failure to produce a bomb just a mistake?
openDoortotheNuclearAge
Werner Heisenberg and Bohr were friends and colleagues before World
War II, as shown in this picture, but the ties grew uncomfortable when
Heisenberg did not leave Germany. Many feared he was working on
the atomic bomb. (Paul Ehrenfast, Jr., courtesy AIP Emilio Segr Visual
Archives, Weisskopf Collection)
What did he want from Bohr? Was he shing for information

about whether the Allied forces were working on a bomb and what
progress they had made so far? Was he working for the Nazi govern-
ment, trying to persuade Bohr (as he had already tried to do in other
occupied countries) that living under German rule was not so bad?
No one knows what was said, but, by the time the two physi-
cists nished their conversation on that occasion, Bohr was clearly
upset and the relationship would never recover. After carefully con-
sidering all the available documents and evidence (including several
unsent letters written by Bohr to Heisenberg), science historian
David C. Cassidy has concluded that Heisenberg wanted Bohr to
exert the pressure of his inuence on Allied scientists to get them
to back off from working on the bomb. Bohr, says Cassidy, to his
credit, immediately sensed Heisenbergs intentions and broke off
the conversation.
88 Niels Bohr
published, as it turned out (a slipup that Bohr always regretted).

Literally overnight, physicists and chemists in universities all over
the United States began testing the premise and found it was true.
The atom had been split! The worlds of physics and chemistry had
been flipped upside-down.
Bohr, of course, was devastated that he had leaked a discovery by
other scientists before they had a chance to publish, and rushed to
write a note for publication in explanation.
The ultimate result of Hahn and Strassmanns experimental
results, which would have been published (and were) in any case, was
that the United States and Great Britain decided to build an atomic
bomb, out of fear of this knowledge in German hands.
Escape
In 1940 the German threat moved closer for Bohr, when the German
armies invaded his homeland. He and Margrethe decided to stay,
however, and in the following three years, he became prominent
in efforts to get those in danger out of Denmark, helping them find
boats to cross the sea to safety.
Another concern of Bohrs, of course, was that assets and equip-
ment should be prevented from falling into German hands, if pos-
sible. Bohr devised a means to protect two Nobel medalsMax
Plancks and Max Lauesthat had been given to him for safekeep-
ing. To prevent the Nazis from recognizing the value of the medals,
he dissolved them in acid and hid the acid-filled vials. After the war
he precipitated the gold out of the acid and recast the medals in their
original form for return to their owners. (Bohr had donated his own
medal to aid the Finnish war effort.)
Bohr stayed in Denmark until 1943, when it became clear that
the Germans intended to imprison him. He and his family narrowly
escaped in a fishing boat, and once he reached safety in Sweden he
continued to help many others escape. There the decision was made
to fly him with his son Aage, then 21, to London, where they could
help with the British war effort. Bundled into the cramped bomb bay
of an unarmed Mosquito British bomber, Bohr became preoccupied
during the flight and pushed off his helmet. Bohr didnt hear the pilots
openDoortotheNuclearAge
Copenhagen, the Play

The unexplained September 1941 meeting between Werner Heisen-
berg and Niels Bohr in Copenhagen continues to call up many ques-
tions of intent, potential compromise, and personal relationship.
The famous meeting was the focus of a drama called Copenhagen
that played in London to sold-out audiences in 1998, then opened a
short time later in New York to enthusiastic acclaim.
The play, written by Michael Frayn, relies on only three charac-
ters to carry its probing dialogue and questioning narrative. The
three players are the ghosts of Heisenberg, Bohr, and Bohrs wife,
Margrethe, the three people who were there that sad day when
Heisenberg came to the Bohr home. The three ghosts return to the
big house, now deserted, to replay a series of possible scenarios
for the meeting. The story is told using the different viewpoints of
each character, evenhandedly, leaving no one character carrying
the burden of guilt. Nothing is really resolved, but the play raises
questions still valid, still unansweredand that is the reason,
according to science historian David C. Cassidy, a Heisenberg
biographer, that todays audiences nd the play powerful and
thought provoking.
Cassidy states his discomfort, though, with the broad but
relatively shallow issues explored in Copenhagen. The play looks at
questions about nuclear ssion that apparently puzzled Heisenberg,
it touches on the controversies raised by quantum, and the family
concerns they shared as friends.
Where are the big issues, Cassidy queries? How could a nation
imbued with a ne culture and composed of intelligent, well-educated
people possibly have crushed out the lives of millions of people in
the most deadly genocide of the century? How could Heisenberga
talented, creative, brilliant physicist, educated in the best traditions
of Northern Europehave agreed to support Nazi Germany?
Instead, these questions form a background wallpaper to the
issues that are explored by Copenhagen: Why did Heisenberg come
to Copenhagen? What did he want to convey to Bohr? What did he,
in turn, want from Bohr?
No one knows the answers to these questions because no one
else went on the walk the two of them took together. No one else
heard what they said. One thing is certain, however. The conversa-
tion that day shook Bohr, and the close friendship and collaborative
teamwork between Bohr and Heisenberg would never recover.
90 Niels Bohr
warning that they would be flying to high altitude, and by the time the
plane arrived in London, he was near death from lack of oxygen.
Physicists Called to Battle

Niels and Aage journeyed to the United States in late 1943 as repre-
sentatives of the British. There security authorities were anxious to
keep the bomb-building Manhattan Project as secret as possiblethe
psychological power of an unexpected attack potentially was an even
mightier weapon than the bomb itself. They worried that the Bohrs
presence in the United States might be noticed and questioned and
that some comment in a newspaper might tip spies off to the exis-
tence of the project. So, on arrival, officials issued false identification
papers to Niels and Aage, disguising Niels as Mr. Nicholas Baker,
and his son as James Baker. (Niels, of course, forgot that his real
name was inscribed on his suitcase!) Throughout their travels they
were accompanied by an armed bodyguard, complete with signed
receipts for their well-being required at every changing of the guard.
Under guard, the two proceeded circuitously to a pine-dotted
mesa called Los Alamos in northern New Mexico. There the United
States government had gathered the best physicists in the country
to work on a secret projectthe development of the atomic bomb.
Aage, whom everyone called Jim, became a junior scientific offi-
cer, and Niels (Uncle Nick) became consultant to the directorate,
headed by Robert Oppenheimer, a tall, lean man who also smoked
a pipe and whose intelligence and energy radiated in Los Alamos as
Nielss did in Copenhagen.
Bohr at Los Alamos was marvelous, Oppenheimer would
later say in a lecture after the war. He took a very lively technical
interest ... But his real function, I think for almost all of us, was
not the technical one. He made the enterprise which looked so
macabre seem hopeful.
In later reflections, Oppenheimer defined Bohrs vision as a kind
of complementarity of the bomba weapon of great destruction
that, unused, could be the key to a different world. He brought this
message to the scientists at Los Alamos. Victor Weisskopf, a young
physicist who had fled from Austria and worked at Los Alamos,
would later describe Bohrs contribution in these terms:
In Los Alamos we were working on something which is per-

haps the most questionable, the most problematic thing a
scientist can be faced with. At that time physics, our beloved
science, was pushed into the most cruel part of reality and we
had to live it through. We were, most of us at least, young and
somewhat inexperienced in human affairs, I would say. But
suddenly in the midst of it, Bohr appeared in Los Alamos.
It was the first time we became aware of the sense in all
these terrible things, because Bohr right away participated
not only in the work, but in our discussions. Every great and
deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution ... This we
learned from him.
By mid-February 1944, Bohr was back in Washington, where

he contacted a friend who was a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court,
Felix Frankfurter. Through
carefully circumspect com-
munication, they estab-
lished that they both were
aware of Los Alamos and the
Manhattan Project. Through
Frankfurter, Bohr com-
municated with President
Roosevelt about his concerns
regarding the postwar future.
From the communications
from Roosevelt, Frankfurter
and Bohr decided that the
president wanted Bohr to act
as go-between to Winston
Churchill, prime minister of
Britain, to express the presi-
dents concern and his inter-
est in including the Soviets
among those informed about J. Robert Oppenheimer headed the secret
the bomb project. The idea Manhattan Project, the Allied forces suc-
cessful effort to build an atomic bomb in Los
was that if the United States Alamos, New Mexico.
and Britain confided in the (J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee)
92 Niels Bohr
While visiting Los Alamos, Bohr skied the snowy slopes, all the while thinking and
talking about atomic physics.
(John P. Miller, courtesy AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives, Segr Collection)
Soviets early, postwar arms control might result, whereas failure to

include the Soviets would almost certainly lead to an arms race.
Niels and Aage went to London, apparently with a mandate to
talk with the prime minister, and on May 16 Niels set out for 10
Downing Street. Aage, who was Nielss complete confidante and
acted as his secretary during this period, remembered what hap-
pened in this way:
We came to London full of hopes and expectations. It was, of
course, a rather novel situation that a scientist should thus try
to intervene in world politics, but it was hoped that Churchill,
who possessed such imagination and who had often shown
such great vision, would be inspired by the new prospects.
The meeting went very badly. Churchill was in a bad mood, sus-
pected his aides of subterfuge, and barely gave Bohr an opportunity
to talk. When Bohr asked if he could write to Churchill, the prime
minister replied, It will be an honour for me to receive a letter from
you, but not about politics. According to some sources, Churchill
became so angry over the incident that he nearly had Bohr arrested.
Discouraged but unstoppable, Bohr did write to Churchill and
to Roosevelt, several times, and also returned to the United States to
communicate again with Roosevelt through his contact, Frankfurter.
But Churchill failed to recognize that the bomb would not remain
a secret forever, that if the British and Americans could build an
atomic bomb, so could other nations, and that, as Bohr would put
it succinctly in later life, We are in a completely new situation that
cannot be resolved by war.
The Final Years
19451962
7
G ermany surrendered in May 1945, and for Europe the war
was finally over. But war continued to rage in the Pacific,
and the development of the atomic bomb was coming to a climax
in Los Alamos. On July 16, 1945, the first detonation of a nuclear
device occurred in a test explosion at nearby Trinity. On August 6
Hiroshima was destroyed by an atomic bomb at 8:15 a.m., Japanese
time. On August 9 a second bomb was dropped, this time striking
Nagasaki. It was 11:02 a.m., Japanese time.
Public Life: Search for a Better World

Two days later an article written by Niels Bohr with Aages
help appeared in the London Times. Its title was Science and
Civilization, and it was Bohrs first public plea for a world where
94
The Final Years 95
open exchange of information could prevent such horrors in the

future. He wrote:
Civilization is presented with a challenge more serious per-
haps than ever before.... We have reached the stage where the
degree of security offered to the citizens of a nation by collective
defense measures is entirely insufficient.... No control can be
effective without free access to full scientific information and the
granting of the opportunity of international supervision of all
undertakings which, unless regulated, might become a source
of disaster.... The contribution which an agreement about this
vital matter would make... can hardly be exaggerated.
Niels and Margrethe Bohr returned home to Copenhagen at last
on August 25, where they resumed their life at Carlsberg House and
Tisvilde. Bohr, as always, threw himself headlong into his work and
enjoyed the company of his grandchildren, for whom he loved to buy
toys and gadgets. In some ways his life went on as before; in some
ways it was greatly changed.
By 1945, Niels Bohr had become an eminent public figure, not
only in Denmark, but worldwide. The king and queen of Denmark
came to Carlsberg House for dinner, as did cabinet ministers and
ambassadors. A lengthy procession of high dignitaries and heads of
state paid visits to Bohr in Copenhagen during the years following
the warincluding Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of England,
the queen of Siam, the crown prince of Japan, the prime ministers of
India and Israel, and even Winston Churchill, the man who almost
had him thrown in prison during the war. As always, he also enter-
tained a steady parade of physicists, both senior and junior, and
spent long hours talking to them and listening to their ideas.
At 60, Bohrs energy had not flaggedhe still took the steps
at the institute two at a time. He continued his involvement with
research issues as well as the continuing growth of the institute.
But also, in the years following the war, he became more and more
involved in an issue that had come to trouble him greatly ever since
the specter of the atomic bomb had become visible.
Even before the war drew to a close, as the Allies gained the
upper hand, Bohr had constantly looked ahead, recognizing the
96 Niels Bohr
future of distrust, fear, and possible destruction that the worlds

nations would face after the war. Although the Allies had cooper-
ated well during the war, he knew that the spirit of cooperation
would not be maintained once the current threat was past. Too
many fundamental differences in economic and political organi-
zation existed among them. He had seen firsthand how difficult
it was even to maintain scientific contacts with colleagues within
the Soviet Union, as that vast Communist country grew more and
more isolated. And he could foretell that finding a basis for coop-
eration between East and West would be a monumental, if not
impossible, task.
As Aage Bohr later explained:
It was against this background that my father saw the pros-
pects of the atom bomb, and he realized immediately how
decisively this new development would affect the world. He
perceived that soon the world might be faced with an arms
race that would threaten the continued existence of civiliza-
tion itself. However, it was characteristic of my fathers whole
attitude that he also saw immediately that these very pros-
pects offered new possibilities of giving political developments
a more favourable turn. Indeed, everyone would have to real-
ize that the world was changed for better or for worse, that now
a comprehensive and genuine co-operation was necessary to
avoid living under the most ominous threats. Here was a vital
task for united effort.
During the coming decade, Bohr made use of his many contacts,
working tirelessly for his vision of a better worlda world where
the threat of atomic weapons was defused by a policy of worldwide
openness. He continued to make overtures to governments. In 1948
he met with George Marshall, the secretary of state of the United
States. Marshall listened with interest, but, in the end, the U.S. gov-
ernment balked at backing Bohrs policy.
By August 1949, the Soviet Union had exploded its first test
bomb. The United States made a public announcement in 1950 that
it would pursue development of the hydrogen bomb. The arms race
Bohr had feared had begun.
The Final Years 97
Letter to the United Nations

But Bohr would not give up. He decided to make a direct worldwide
appeal, no longer in private conferences with heads of state but in
an open letter to the United Nations. In February 1950 he arrived
Considered one of the greatest theoretical physicists since Sir Isaac Newton, Bohr was an
inspired theorist, a charismatic teacher and leader, and a compassionate humanitarian.
(Max Planck Institute fur Physik, courtesy AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives)
98 Niels Bohr
once again for a short stay at the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton, where he enlisted the help of his former student and future
biographer, Abraham Pais. Many discussions ensued. Bohr returned
to Copenhagen in May, where he and Harald hammered out the text
of the letter in secret. They sent the letter to Bohrs son Aage, who
at the time was at Columbia University in New York. At 10:00 a.m.
on June 9, a moment timed to coincide with a press conference Bohr
called in Copenhagen, Aage Bohr delivered the letter to the office of
the secretary general of the United Nations, Trygve Lie.
The following excerpt contains the major points of the letter:
The situation calls for the most unprejudiced attitude towards
all questions of international relations. Indeed, proper appre-
ciation of the duties and responsibilities implied in world
citizenship is in our time more necessary than ever before. On
the one hand, the progress of science and technology has tied
the fate of all nations inseparably together, on the other hand,
it is on a most different cultural background that vigorous
endeavours for national self-assertion and social development
are being made in the various parts of our globe. An open
world where each nation can assert itself solely by the extent to
which it can contribute to the common culture and is able to
help others with experience and resources must be the goal to
be put above everything else... The arguments presented sug-
gest that every initiative from any side towards the removal of
obstacles for free mutual information and intercourse would
be of the greatest importance in breaking the present deadlock
and encouraging others to take steps in the same direction.
Bohr opened his press conference in Copenhagen and read the
contents of his letter before the assembled members of the press.
Having said everything he meant to say in the text of some 5,500
words, he refused, for the most part, to accept questions and con-
cluded his news conference.
The reaction was disappointing. Secretary General Lie acknowl-
edged receiving the letter, assuring Bohr that he would give it most
careful consideration, but the international body never made plans
to discuss or debate its premises. Few outside the Scandinavian
countries paid any attention to the news conference. Not until Bohr
The Final Years 99
distributed thousands of copies (printed at his own expense) to the

foreign news media, heads of state, colleagues, and friends did some
feedback begin to drift in. But even then the response was primarily
neutral or negative.
Two of the more positive reactions came from the Washington
Post and the New York Herald Tribune. The first cautioned somewhat
lamely against dismissing Bohrs ideas without some consideration.
The New York paper maintained, only a little more supportively,
The open world is an idea of such simplicity, such power and such
potential effect that it is not lightly to be dismissed.
The times were not right for the kind of trust and mutual coop-
eration that Bohr envisioned, and would not be for another 30 years.
Instead, June 24 of 1954 marked the beginning of the Korean War,
and the United States exploded its first hydrogen (thermonuclear)
bomb in the Pacific before the year was out.
Bohr never gave up on his idea, though. During the last 20 years
of his life, he focused primarily on the problems as well as the pros-
pects inherent in the release of atomic energy. And he always contin-
ued to maintain that opennessfree access to information and free
exchange of ideaswas the only course that would be in the mutual
interest of all nations.
A fine footnote to this period of Bohrs life came about in 1985
long after his death, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the
Soviet Union, promoting what he called glasnost, a new spirit of
openness between his country and the West. That fall, all Denmark
celebrated the centenary of Bohrs birth, and among the several
special events that took place in Copenhagen, a three-way TV hook-
up was arranged, linking speakers in Copenhagen, Moscow, and
Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss the challenge of nuclear arma-
ments. Afterward, a book of essays was published on the subject,
dedicated to Niels Bohr and his appeal for an open world.
Physicists, Particle Physics,

Openness, and Peace
Bohr had appealed for political action to turn atomic energy to
human benefit, with no results; thereafter he turned to the scien-
tific community. Physics, he argued, could lay the groundwork of
100 Niels Bohr
cooperation between nations. During the 1950s he became involved

in several international projects that have greatly advanced the
study of physics in Europe. By this time physics had entered a new
phase, with particle physics replacing nuclear physics as the cutting
edge of the field. Particle physics, sometimes referred to as high-
energy physics, took another step deeper into the mysteries of the
atom. Theoretical and experimental investigations of subatomic
particles required powerful (high-energy) machines, far bigger
and more expensive than the accelerators of the 1930s. Clearly, if
European nations wanted to recover from the brain drain caused
by the departure of thousands of German and Italian scientists dur-
ing the war, cooperation was necessary.
In part as a result of discussions at a conference in Copenhagen
called by Bohr in 1951, the idea developed for a new, international
center for theoretical and experimental physics. By 1952 represen-
tatives from 14 European countries met in Copenhagen to lay the
groundwork for the Conseil Europen pour la Recherche Nuclaire
(European Council for Nuclear Research), known as CERN. The
cooperation, of course, did not go completely smoothly. Debates
ensued about what kind of equipment was needed and where it
should be located. Bohr and others had hoped that CERN might
locate in Copenhagen, and for a time the theoretical branch was
located there. But in the end, Geneva became the chosen site,
and by 1957 a synchrocyclotron particle accelerator operating at
0.6 giga electron volts (0.6 GeV, or 1 billion electron volts) was
in operation. By 1959 the proton synchrotron particle accelerator
began operating at 28 GeV.
When it became clear that CERN would not stay in Copenhagen,
Bohr helped organize a theoretical physics consortium, not in compe-
tition with CERN, formed jointly by an alliance of Scandinavian coun-
tries, including Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Called Nordita (for
Nordisk Institut for Theoretisk Atomfysik), the new institute would be
centered in Copenhagen. Finland joined the group in 1955. Nordita
began operations on September 1, 1957, much to Bohrs pleasure.
In 1964, after Bohrs death, Nordita moved into quarters next to the
Institute for Theoretical Physics. (Bohrs institute was renamed the
Niels Bohr Institute the following year.) With expanded research
The Final Years 101
programs in both institutesincluding condensed matter physics,

particle physics, and astrophysicstoday the two institutes work
closely together. Nordita has thrived in the more than 35 years since
its foundation, having become a center for research, colloquiums, and
conferences that attract participants from all over the world.
A third opportunity came to light in December 1953, when
President Dwight D. Eisenhower made a proposal before the United
Nations, calling for an end to the atomic arms race and establish-
ment of international cooperation to promote peaceful uses for
atomic energy. While this proposal sounds like more than it was
(the arms race did not come to an end), Eisenhower was implying
that uranium sources might be made available to other countries.
Denmark was among the first to express interest. The Danish
Academy of Technical Sciences was instrumental in getting the ball
rolling. A committee took form, chaired by Bohr, and in 1954 Bohr
visited with the prime minister of Denmark to explore the possibil-
ity with him. In March 1955 the government formed a Preparatory
Atomic Energy Commission, with Bohr at its head. Beginning in
April 1955, Bohr began working on arrangements with the Danish
government for establishing agreements with the United States and
the United Kingdom for technical consultation on the building and
construction of reactors.
Meanwhile, he began searching for a suitable site for the reactors
and research facility, in many cases personally checking out pos-
sible islands and peninsulas. Finally he asked a group of commission
members to take a look at a couple of sites he thought had potential.
The spot he was considering was located near the medieval city of
Roskilde, about 20 miles west of Copenhagen. The first site, which he
thought was the less likely of the two, was an island, called Bolund,
that at low tide nearly formed a peninsula. One of the commissioners
told of the excursion in wonder:
We went down to the beach. From there it seemed evident that
it did not suit the purpose. Bohr was not content with guesses,
however. We should have a look. Off with shoes and socks, up
with pants, out into the water, Bohr ahead, over sharp stones,
then up the slope to Bolunds topour guess was correct, we
could in good conscience drop Bolund and concentrate on
102 Niels Bohr
other possibilitiesin the meantime we had learned some-

thing about Bohrs working style.
By the following year Denmark was ready to set up a permanent
Atomic Energy Commission, and Bohr was asked to accept the
chairmanship, which he gladly did. He was 70 years old. A rocky pen-
insula called Ris, which jutted out into the fjord near the rejected
island of Bolund, would be the site, and by the fall of 1956, construc-
tion on the research laboratories had begun. Contracts were signed
to acquire three reactors. By the summer of 1957, laboratories for
physics, chemistry, reactor development, and electronics were in
use. A machine shop, meteorology station, and agricultural station
were also in operation. A formal inauguration ceremony took place
on June 6, 1958 with the king and queen of Denmark and many other
Danish and foreign officials in attendance. By 1960 all three reactors
were in full operation.
Under Bohrs direction, facilities at the Institute for Theoretical
Physics were growing as well. A new five-story building was under
construction, and an underground structure to house the revamped
cyclotron was built. In addition, the institute scientists felt that a
larger accelerator was neededbut there was no place left to build in
the area surrounding the institute. The Atomic Energy Commission
came to the rescue with an offer of land near the Ris center. Plans
for building a new laboratory began at once, with an accelera-
tor that could produce protons at 10 to 12 MeV (million electron
volts)only a fraction the size of the accelerator at the new CERN
facility, but nonetheless an exciting prospect for physics research in
Denmark. It first went into operation in 1961. The new laboratory is
now called the Niels Bohr Institute, like the institute in Copenhagen,
and it has become a vital nexus of international research.
Although Bohrs well-considered, even noble, plea for openness
among nations went virtually unheeded in the political arena, he had
clearly succeeded in marshaling international cooperation among
scientists and in developing peaceful uses for the release of atomic
energy. On October 24, 1957 the first Atoms for Peace Awarda
gold medal and a check for $75,000was presented to him at the
Great Hall of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.
At that time President Eisenhower called Bohr a great man whose
The Final Years 103
mind has explored the mysteries of the inner structure of atoms, and
whose spirit has reached into the very heart of man.
Between 1945 and 1961 Bohr delivered more than 20 lectures
all over the world. In the process, he also received more than 30
honorary doctorates from such prestigious institutions as Princeton
and Columbia universities. During the 1950s Bohrs travels were
extensive, including visits to Iceland in 1951, to Israel in 1953, to
Yugoslavia in 1956, to Greenland in 1957, and again to Yugoslavia
and Israel in 1958.
Shrinking Circle of Friends

Bohr also made numerous visits to the United States, usually
spending time in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton, where he had a standing membership. During his visits
of February to June 1948, February to May 1950, and September to
December 1954, he often camped in Einsteins office (Einstein pre-
ferred the office anteroom or the study at his home) and held forth in
his continuing discussion with his old friend, always trying to swing
him over to his own way of thinking about complementarity and
quantum mechanics. He never succeeded.
Einsteins death in April 1955 hit Bohr hard. This was a friend for
whom he had the deepest respect, admiration, and love. His inability
to reconcile their intellectual differences gnawed at him constantly,
and Einstein was on his mind for the rest of his life. In a memorial,
Bohr wrote, With the death of Albert Einstein, a life in the service
of science and humanity which was as fruitful as any in the whole
history of our culture has come to an end... He gave us a world
picture with a unity and harmony surpassing the boldest dreams of
the past. But for Bohr personally, much more than that, a kindred
mind, a sort of twin light had gone out. To the whole of mankind
Albert Einsteins death is a great loss and to those of us who had the
good fortune to enjoy his warm friendship it is a grief that we shall
nevermore be able to see his gentle smile and listen to him.
Bohr suffered two other great personal losses during the 1950s.
In 1951 his brother, Harald, died of cancer at the age of 63. Next to
his wife, Harald had always been Nielss closest friend and greatest
ally. The loss was huge. Seven years later, in 1958, Wolfgang Pauli
104 Niels Bohr
died suddenly in Zurich, Switzerland. Of all the younger physicists

Bohr had worked with in the 1920s and 1930s, Pauli had always
understood him most intuitively. Niels and Margrethe traveled to
Switzerland for the memorial services.
As his 75th birthday approached, Bohr traveled to India in
January 1960, where he attended the Indian Science Congress in
Bombay. There he delivered two lectures, on human knowledge and
atoms, and on the principles of quantum physics. He took time to
explore Calcutta, Madras, Agra, and Delhi, where he visited with the
prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. He and Margrethe also visited
the carved caves of Elephanta in Bombay Harbor, known for their
eighth-century sculptured figures, as well as the caves of Ellora in
central India and Ajanta in east-central India, known for their exqui-
site ancient sculptures, carvings, and paintings, some dating back as
far as the third century b.c.
The following month he journeyed to Geneva for the inaugura-
tion of CERN, and in May of 1961 he visited the Soviet Union for the
second time, where he stopped at institutions in Moscow and Dubna
and spent three days in Georgia.
But by the fall of 1961, Niels Bohr was finally beginning to slow
down. At the 12th Solvay conference in Brussels that Octoberthe
50th anniversary of the first of these meetingshe presented a talk
entitled The Solvay Meetings and the Development of Quantum
Physics. He asked permission to deliver the address from his seat.
Still, in June 1962 Bohr made another short trip to the United
States to accept an honorary doctorate from the Rockefeller
Institute in New York, and later that month he drove with
Margrethe by car from Copenhagen to Cologne, Germany, where
he delivered a talk entitled Light and Life Revisited at the open-
ing of the Institute of Genetics. Throughout his career, Bohr had
at various times tried to apply complementarity and a mechanistic
approach to biology, an effort that was rarely well received. On this
occasion, he stated, in a typical effort to reset humanitys sights on
the search for truth: In the last resort, it is a matter of how one
makes headway in biology.... Life will always be a wonder, but
what changes is the balance between the feeling of wonder and the
courage to try to understand.
The Final Years 105
From Cologne, the Bohrs continued on to the Bavarian city of

Lindau, located on Lake Constance, where Nobel laureates tradition-
ally gathered annually. While there Niels suddenly became ill. He was
hospitalized with a diagnosis of minor cerebral hemorrhage and then
was hurried back to receive medical attention in Denmark. He spent
the following month recuperating with Margrethe at Tisvilde, where
the two celebrated their golden wedding anniversary on August 1. It
was a joyful party, attended by all the children and grandchildrenin
whom Bohr always delighted enormously.
On September 30, Margrethe and Niels left for Italy, where they
spent a happy vacation together in the resort town of Amalfi, over-
looking the Gulf of Salerno on the southwestern coast. The sunlight
sparkled on the azure waters, and the air smelled of fresh lemons
and sea breezes, as colorful fishing boats bobbed in the little port.
There they relaxed and celebrated Nielss 77th birthday, returning
to Copenhagen on October 27.
With his doctors blessing, Bohr resumed his regular work sched-
ule, chairing a meeting of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences and
Literature on Friday, November 16, 1962, as he had for many years.
The following day he kept an appointment to tape an interview on
the history of quantum physics. His voice sounded tired.
November 18, 1962, was a Sunday, and after lunching with
Margrethe and a few friends, Bohr went upstairs to take a nap. A
few moments later his wife heard him call out Margrethe, and she
rushed up the stairs to his side. Niels had collapsed, unconscious,
next to his bed. The diagnosis was heart failure.
Niels Bohrs remains were cremated, and burial took place at
Assistens Kirkegaard, where his ashes were placed near those he
loved besthis brother Harald, his son Christian, and his parents.
Twenty-two years later his wife, Margrethe, was buried at his side.
Niels Bohr and the Pursuit of Truth

The public reaction to Bohrs death was a great outpouring of admi-
ration, respect, and affection. Physicists and friends from all over the
world sent their condolences. In an unprecedented tribute to a non-
member, the Folketing (the Danish parliament) stood to honor him
106 Niels Bohr
as their president talked of Denmarks sorrow. The prime minister of

Israel, the king of Sweden, the chancellor of Germany, and President
Kennedy of the United States all sent messages. Newspapers and
magazines bore tributes such as With the passing of Niels Bohr the
world has lost not only one of the great scientists of this century but
also one of the intellectual giants of all time (the New York Times).
And For physicists throughout the world, Niels Bohr, the gentle
genius of Denmark, has long embodied the heroic image of a scien-
tist (the Christian Science Monitor).
But perhaps the greatest representation of Niels Bohrs untiring
effort to pursue knowledge remained untouched on his study black-
boarda diagram drawn the night before his death in one last effort
to overcome the arguments of his longtime friend and intellectual
sparring partner, Albert Einstein.
Bohrs bulldog tenacity in the long-standing debate, of course,
was not one-sided. A month before Einsteins death, Einstein was
also still writing about his disagreements with the Copenhagen inter-
pretation and Bohrs arguments.
And the debate isnt over yet. Today a few physicists still have
problems with what they call the Copenhagen orthodoxy and have
begun to veer away from using Bohrs complementarity to explain
the physical characteristics of the atom. If they are on the right track,
Bohr would be the first to rejoice. As Otto Frisch once wrote about
him, He never hesitated for a moment to admit that he had been in
error; to him it merely meant that he now understood things better,
and what could have made him happier?
Albert Einstein once said of Bohr, He utters his opinions like
one perpetually groping and never like one who believes to be in
possession of definite truth. For a scientist, this was the ultimate
compliment, from one of the greatest scientists of all time. It was this
quality, above all, that made Niels Bohr the remarkable scientist that
he was and a supreme model for anyone who is truly committed to
the pursuit of truth.
8 Rethinking
Bohrs Physics
T he early years of the 20th century framed an exciting period

in physics as experimentalists and theoreticians tried to rec-
oncile the consequences of each new discoveryBecquerel and
radiation, the Curies and their discovery of radium, emerging
theories about the nature of the atom, including Ernest Rutherford
and chemist Frederick Soddys 1902 paper on transformation, or,
even more daring, transmutation of radioactive elements. Talk like
that felt uncomfortably like alchemy, long known to be a pseudo-
science. However, the data were there, teased out one by one in
Rutherfords best ground-solid, carefully documented experimen-
tal technique. Many scientists, including Marie Curie, rejected
the idea that one element might decay into another. But transfor-
mation theory fit in place like exactly the right piece in a jigsaw
puzzle. (No alchemy involved, of course.) Transformation theory
107
108 Niels Bohr
made the newly discovered radioactive substances far easier to

explain, and most scientists were convinced that it was essentially
correct. However, questions began to well up about what caused
radioactive decay and why this apparent randomness entered into
the customarily well-ordered world of physics. What happened to
cause and effect?
Then came quantum mechanics, with its many unexpected
conclusions. Physics was on the edge of the greatest revolution
since Isaac Newtons work on gravity and light in the 17th century.
A new vision of the universe began to emerge. As Max Born recog-
nized, cause and effect worked in the macro-sized physical reality
of Newtonian physics, but in the microworld probability reigned.
You could not pronounce the status caused by a crash in the world
of quantum mechanicsonly a statement of probability is possible:
How probable is a given effect of the collision? One new concept
rolled quickly into the next, in an explosion of keen thinking, team-
work, and creativity. It was in this environment that Heisenberg
came up with the now-famous uncertainty principlethe recogni-
tion that you can know one thing or another but not both.
During the later years of his life, Einstein became interested in
the idea of a single theory, a sort of mother of all monster theories,
a TOEan all-purpose Theory of Everything that would address
all the contradictions and paradoxes that lived in the world of
quantum mechanics. By the end of Niels Bohrs lifetime, physics
was moving more and more toward Einsteins quest for a universal
theorya TOE. So far, the most promising of these efforts has been
a strange set of ideas known as string theory, or, rather, the brand
most physicists subscribe to today is called superstring theory.
Physicists have spent three decades serving up this brew, and, while
many aspects of this theory seem to fit, much of it is very strange
and not so easy to take. Superstrings have so completely taken over
in the macroworld, while still being difficult to understand, that
some physicists and mathematicians are beginning to wonder what
happens if they are wrong? Nobel physicist Murray Gell-Mann
liked to call string theory the only game in town. That is, no one
has come up with any other theory that can even begin to explain
the universe as well as string theory. It is admittedly promising.
String theory brings together Einsteins relativity and the same
Rethinking Bohrs Physics 109
quantum mechanics that fascinated Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, and

all the rest. Further, it explains the tiny particles of fundamental
physics. They are not pointlike, Martin Gardner explains in an
April 2007 book review. Strings are formed by superfine filaments
of energy so tiny that they cannot be seen or otherwise detected,
even by using a collider.
What Are Strings?

Strings may either have two ends or form a closed loop, sort of like a
broken rubber band of the sort that comes with the Sunday paper
but not really, because strings are pure energy and have only one
dimension, and their universe is partly recognizable as our universe
but does not stop with the space-time continuum as we know it, with
its three spatial dimensions and time. Strings live in that universe
and they make it hum. That is, they live in a space composed of those
four dimensions plus six or seven more that are compacted. Far
smaller than any atomic particle, strings are staggeringly tiny: a mil-
lionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. These
minuscule forms are attached to every point in our four dimensions
that make up space and time (or spacetime). They have a tough job:
The vibration and movement of the strings create the very fabric
of space itself, along with all of natures fundamental forces and
elementary particles.
In the 30 years since the first introduction of string theory into
the world of physics, thousands of papers and dissertations have
been written about string theory. Although many physicists rejected
string theory at first as improbable, it has become much more
respectable in recent years.
The Universe Both Big and Small

The great search for Bohrand other theoretical physicists from
Newton to todaywas to find the best description of nature, the
one that best captured the essence of reality and existence. The very
enormity of the universe defies our ability to understand, but physi-
cists have found that the tools of mathematics go far toward enabling
humans to find ways to explain the place where we live.
110 Niels Bohr
Newton used calculus to describe motion mathematically, and

physicists who followed him were able to extend his model for the
gravitational force to the science and technology of electromag-
netism. As calculus evolved to become classical field theory, many
scientists felt that they had arrived at the best description of nature
possible. They had gone as far as possible, they believed. They had
done the job and nothing remained to explain or describe.
Then J. J. Thomson discovered the electron and particle physics
was off and running. This was the heyday of Niels Bohr and his col-
leagues. Quantum mechanics and experimental observation provid-
ed the toeholds for finding and describing atomic particles, and, by
using mathematical and conceptual tools provided by Bohr, Einstein,
and others who followed them, physicists deduced that all particles
fell into two categories: fermions or bosons. Bosons are particles
that transmit forces, and many bosons can occupy the same state at
the same time. But not fermions. Only one fermion can occupy the
same state at the same time. So fermions are the particles that make
up matter. This is why solids do not pass through each other, which
one might expect them to do, given the way atoms are built. Due to
this phenomenon, known as Pauli repulsion, fermions (matter) can-
not share the same space the way bosons can.
As particle physics developed with quantum mechanics, Einstein
was providing ways to understand how light works. In his special the-
ory of relativity, he developed mathematics that helped him describe
and model this phenomenon. Combined with the later development
of quantum mechanics, relativistic quantum field theory was born.
Therein would lay the groundwork used by theoretical physicists of
the last half of the 20th century to describe and explore the behavior
of subatomic particleseven smaller than particles.
Einsteins legacy did not stop there. He extended his special theo-
ry of relativity to include Newtons theory of gravitationgiving birth
to the general theory of relativity. This formulation of gravity shows
that space and time communicate the gravitational force through
their curvatureand this view of how things work has served well
to help describe nature. Sometimes it has left both scientists and the
public in awe with its generally unexpected explanations, for example
when it predicted the existence of black holes and when it success-
fully showed that the universe was expanding.
Rethinking Bohrs Physics 111
The Impossible Dream?

Since the heyday of the particle physicists, however, string theory has
taken over the forward pursuit of understanding the complexities
of the natural world we live in. Going back again to the incredibly
small, these tiny filaments called strings seem to explain much about
the universe in mathematical terms. Superstring theory is founded
on three key ideas: a principle called supersymmetry; the existence
of additional dimensions; and the manifestation of gravity as a force
defined by the exchange of quantum particles. However, even after
30 years of study, no experiment has ever succeeded in showing that
stringsor string theorys three claims to existenceactually exist.
Supersymmetry is a mathematical principle that allows force-
carrying particles, such as photons and gluons, to transform into
each other. If supersymmetry exists, theoreticians envision that
every particle has an unseen shadow partner that is very large (too
large for colliders to help with the job of finding them). The pros-
pect of multiversesmultiple universesintrigues many physicists
and the public as well. According to physicist Sten Odenwald, with
the existence of string theorys six or seven hidden dimensions, tril-
lions of possible six-dimensional geometries would exist and each
one would call up its own, unique universe. However, if either one
of these conditions do not exist, then string theory is no longer
viable and 30 years of work since Bohrs time would be useless and
theoretical physics would have to revert to the standard model. More
uncertainty exists. Physicists have also come to depend on string
theory for explaining astronomical features such as dark matter, dark
energy, and cosmic inflation.
Looking back to Bohrs time, the journey through decades of
string theory seems intriguing, even compelling, but many theorists
are beginning to wonder What if ...?
Conclusion:
The Legacy of Niels Bohr
W hen Niels Bohr died on November 18, 1962, a great light

went out, the illuminations of a brilliant and humane mind
were stilled, and, as many sadly put it at the time, the last of the great
giants had gone.
Even more than Einstein, Niels Bohr had created new ways of
looking at the world in the first half of the 20th century. With the
Bohr atom, science began a journey that continues to amaze, disturb,
and enlighten today. Under his stewardship the quantum revolution
brought to light some of the finest minds of 20th-century physics, a
truly astonishing group of brilliant and innovative scientists, who in
turn sowed the ideas that have so profoundly changed our world and
the way that we attempt to understand it.
The gradual revelation of the quantum nature of the world has
resulted in such practical applications as lasers, MRI (magnetic
113
114 Niels Bohr
Here is Bohr, working on an equation with his son, Aage, also a Nobel laureate in physics.
(AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives, Margrethe Bohr Collection)
resonance imaging) machines, and semiconductors (the basic mate-

rials for transistors and chips that today make possible electronic
marvels ranging from miniature radios and television sets to digital
watches, cell phones, and personal computers). The much talked-
about Information Superhighway of the not-so-distant future
will have at its core an array of technological marvels based on our
understanding and application of quantum theory.
Perhaps even more important, quantum theory and quantum
mechanics have changed our understanding of nature at a very basic
and profound level. That this new understanding is disturbing to many
even today is tribute to its fundamentally revolutionary nature.
Will we see yet another revolution in physics, or with the
quantum revolution have we come to the end of the story? Today
some scientists are still divided in their acceptance of the Spirit of
Copenhagen. Is the quantum theory complete, or will tomorrow
bring a new and perhaps more startling revolution?
Conclusion 115
Whatever the answer to this question, there can be no doubt that

in the annals of scientific history, Niels Bohr will continue to stand as
a bright beacon. As both scientist and human being he was a man of
insatiable curiosity and tremendous perseverance, a man of unusual
intellectual talents and love of knowledge. It was a love that he shared
with all around him, with a uniquely infectious enthusiasm. Almost
alone in the pantheon of great scientific geniuses such as Galileo,
Newton, and Einstein, Niels Bohr came most alive, as a thinker and
a human being, in the company of others. Few who came in contact
with Bohr were not inspired to put forth their best and develop their
deepest thoughts. Out of this exciting interaction, the give and take,
inventiveness and criticism, came some of the most profound ideas
of our time. And out of it too came a gallery of great thinkers and
scientists. Whether students, friends, or coworkers (and often many
were all three at the same time), all who knew and worked with Bohr
carried with them forever afterward a part of the Bohr legacy.
Chronology
October 7, Niels Bohr is born in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1885
1895 J. J. Thomson discovers the electron.
1896 Nobel Prize established
1900 Quantum theory is established with Planck discovery.
December 5, Werner Heisenberg is born in Wurzburg, Germany.

1901
1905 Albert Einstein publishes paper on photoelectric

effect.
1909 Earns a masters degree in physics from the

University of Copenhagen
1910 Ernest Rutherford describes how electrons orbit

tiny nuclei in atoms.
1911 Receives a doctorate degree in physics from

University of Copenhagen and travels to Cambridge
to study at the Cavendish Laboratory headed by Sir
Joseph John Thomson
1912 Completes postdoctoral research at the University

of Manchester with Ernest Rutherford
May 11, Marries Margrethe Nrlund

1912
117
118 Niels Bohr
1913 Publishes a trilogy of articles in Philosophical

Magazine describing his quantum mechanical
model of the atom
1914 World War I begins.
1915 Einstein develops his general theory of relativity.
1918 World War I ends.
October Werner Heisenberg enters the University of Munich.

1920
1921 Becomes the first director of the new Institute for

Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. Retains this
position until his death
1922 Fascist government formed in Italy

Heisenberg and Bohr meet for the first time at
Gttingen lecture series.
Receives Nobel Prize in physics on December 11
for his theory of the quantum mechanical model of
the atom
1924 Louis de Broglie proposes the wave nature of atoms.

Heisenberg begins research at Bohr Institute.
1925 Quantum mechanics first formulated
1926 Erwin Schrdinger proves wave and matrix

mechanics mathematically equivalent.
1927 Heisenberg develops uncertainty principle.

Bohr and Heisenberg argue for complementary
principle at Volta Conference.
1928 Proposes the Copenhagen interpretation

Chronology 119
1929 New York City stock market collapses.
1931 Ernest Lawrence and M. Stanley Livingston develop

first cyclotron.
1932 James Chadwick discovers neutron.

Heisenberg uses neutron theory to apply quantum
mechanics to structure of the nucleus.
1933 Adolf Hitler takes power in Germany in January.

Heisenberg receives Nobel Prize in December.
1934 Enrico Fermi bombards uranium with neutrons in

Rome, Italy.
193637 Develops liquid droplet model to describe the

atomic nucleus
1939 Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch realize that the atom
can be split.
Bohr and John Wheeler realize that atomic fission
will release great energy.
Bohr helps German-Jewish scientists flee from
Germany.
Einstein warns President Roosevelt that Germany
may be developing atomic power.
World War II begins in September when Germany
invades Poland.
Fermi, now in America, and Frdric and Irne
Joliot-Curie in Paris posit that a nuclear chain
reaction is possible.
1940 Otto Frisch and Rudolph Peierls calculate

minimum of U-235 needed to sustain chain
reaction.
Germany invades Denmark.
120 Niels Bohr
1941 Glenn Seaborg and others discover plutonium.

In September Heisenberg visits Bohr in
Copenhagen.
December 7, Japan attacks the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor.

1941
1942 Fermi produces first nuclear chain reaction.
1943 Robert Oppenheimer starts work on developing an

atomic bomb at Los Alamos.
194345 Consults for the Manhattan Project
June 6, Allied forces arrive in Normandy on D-day.

1944
May 3, Heisenberg arrested by U.S. forces in Germany.

1945
May 8, Germany surrenders and the war in Europe ends.

1945
July 16, The first atomic bomb test succeeds near

1945 Alamogordo, New Mexico.
August 6, An atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

1945
August 9, A second atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki,

1945 Japan.
August 10, Japan surrenders.

1945
1962 Niels Bohr dies on November 18th of heart failure

at the age of 77 in Copenhagen.
Glossary
alpha particle (alpha rays) one of three types of radiation (the others
are beta particles and gamma particles) discovered in early studies of
radioactivity around 1900. Rutherford showed that alpha particles are
helium nuclei, which are made up of two protons and two neutrons
tightly bound together
atom the smallest chemical unit of an element, consisting of a dense,
positively charged nucleus surrounded by negatively charged elec-
trons. The Greek thinker Leucippus and his student Democritus
originally conceived of the idea of the atom in the 5th century b.c. as
the smallest particle into which matter could be divided. (The word
atom comes from the Greek word atomos, which means indivis-
ible.) But in the 1890s and early 20th century, scientists discovered
that the atom is made up of even smaller particles, most of which are
very strongly bound together
atomic mass (also known as atomic weight) the relative average
mass in atomic mass units (or amu, equal to 1/12 the weight of the
isotope carbon-12) of the masses of all the isotopes found in a natural
sample of an element
atomic number the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom
atomic spectrum the characteristic pattern produced by light emitted
by any element when it is heated
beta particle a high-speed electron (or its positive cousin, the posi-
tron) emitted during radioactive decay
complementarity the existence of different aspects of the description
of a physical system, seemingly incompatible but both needed for a
complete description of the system. In particular, the wave-particle
duality (the need to describe some systems as composed of both waves
and particles)
cyclotron a device used to accelerate atomic particles around and
around in a circle until they reach immense energies
electron a very light, negatively charged subatomic particle that orbits
the nucleus of an atom
121
122 Niels Bohr
fission a nuclear reaction in which an atomic nucleus splits into frag-

ments. Fission can generate enormous amounts of energy
isotope one of two or more of any elements atoms with the same
number of protons in the nuclei, but a different number of neutrons.
Isotopes have the same chemistry but different nuclear physics
neutron an uncharged, or neutral, particle found in the nucleus of every
atom except hydrogen. It has nearly the same weight as the proton
photon a small particle, or packet, of electromagnetic energy, hav-
ing no mass and no electric charge; electromagnetic force when it
behaves as a particle, rather than as a wave. The photons existence
was first proposed by Albert Einstein to explain the behavior of light
in photoelectric experiments
Plancks constant (h) the quantity that underlies all of quantum
physics. It has the dimensions of momentum times distance or energy
times time. It was discovered by Max Planck in 1900 when he tried
to explain the spectrum of radiation from a hot body (the black body
radiation problem)
proton a positively charged particle found in the nucleus of all atoms
quanta the plural of quantum
quantum [from the Latin adjective meaning how much] funda-
mental unit, or packet, of energy
quantum theory a theory of atomic and subatomic interaction based
on the behavior of all particles as both waves and particles. The the-
ory makes use of the concepts of probability and quantum energy to
explain everything that happens on the atomic and subatomic scale
string theory a unified theory of the universe (see TOE) that, unlike
the theories of particle physics put forth by Bohr and his colleagues,
hypothesizes that the basic ingredients of nature are not particles.
Instead, they are extraordinarily tiny one-dimensional filaments
called strings. Quantum mechanics and general relativity become
compatible in a universe based on string theory, solving the problem
of the inconsistencies these two systems precipitate; often short for
superstring theory
theory of everything (TOE) a unified theory of the universe that
explains otherwise seemingly incompatible phenomena, such as
quantum mechanics and general relativity
uranium a heavy, silvery-white radioactive element used in nuclear
fuels, nuclear weapons, and research; the heaviest naturally occurring
element (atomic number, 238)
Glossary 123
X-ray a high-energy photon. X-rays have a very short wavelength and

are emitted from a metal target when it is bombarded by energetic
electrons
Further Resources
Works by Niels Bohr

Bohr, Niels. Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge. New York: John
Wiley, 1958.
This collection of articles forms a sequel to earlier essays edited by
the Cambridge University Press, 1934, in a volume titled Atomic
Theory and the Description of Nature.
. Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1961.
Contains an introductory survey of atomic theory and mechan-
ics, the quantum postulate and the recent development of
atomic theory, the quantum of action and the description of
nature, and the atomic theory and the fundamental principles
underlying the description of nature.
. Collected Works, vols. 110. Amsterdam: North-Holland, from
1972.
A 10-volume set of Niels Bohrs collected works.
. Determination of the Surface-Tension of Water by the Method
of Jet Vibration. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 209
(1909), pp. 281ff.
Niels Bohrs first published paper, which came out in 1909.
. Disintegration of Heavy Nuclei. Nature, 143 (1939), pp. 330ff.
Bohr explores the newly discovered process of fission, beginning
with the disintegration of heavy nuclei.
. Essays 19581963 on Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge.
New York: Interscience, 1963.
Bohr continues his series of essays on atomic physics, from
19581963.
125
126 Niels Bohr
. Neutron Capture and Nuclear Constitution. Nature 137

(1939), pp. 344ff.
As Bohr develops his theory of the atom, he considers the cap-
ture of neutrons and the constitution of neutrons.
. Resonance in Uranium and Thorium Disintegrations and
the Phenomenon of Nuclear Fission. Physical Review, 56 (1939),
pp. 418ff.
Niels Bohrs take on atomic fission.
, and J. A. Wheeler. The Mechanism of Nuclear Fission. Physical
Review, 56 (1939), pp. 426ff.
Bohr and Wheeler explore the mechanism of nuclear fission in
the year it was discovered.
Books about Niels Bohr

French, A. P., and P. J. Kennedy, (editors). Niels Bohr: A Centenary
Volume. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
As well done and fascinating as the Einstein Centenary volume,
with many personal reminiscences of Bohr the scientist and
Bohr the man.
Moore, Ruth. Niels Bohr: The Man, His Science, and the World They
Changed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.
Straightforward and readable biography of Bohr.
Ottaviani, Jim, Leland Purvis, et al. Suspended in Language: Niels Bohrs
Life, Discoveries, and the Century He Shaped. Ann Arbor, Mich.: G. T.
Labs, 2004.
A clever and witty approach not only for learning about the
fascinating life of Niels Bohr but also for gaining a uniquely pre-
sented insight into quantum mechanics and the other scientists
who changed the way we look at the world. It is all wonderfully
told in the style of the best graphic novels but delivers the addi-
tional punch of being imaginative and intellectually exciting.
Pais, Abraham. Niels Bohrs Times: In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Somewhat complicated in structure and approach but overall
the best and most detailed of the books on Bohr to date.
Rozental, S. (editor). Niels Bohr: His Life and Work as Seen by His
Friends and Colleagues. New York: John Wiley, 1967.
Highly personal reminiscences by those who knew him. Easy to
read and often charming.
Segr, Gino. Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics.
New York: Viking, 2007.
A compelling look at the brilliantly individual men and women
who through arguments, challenges, grueling all-night discus-
sions, and years of eccentric teamwork put together the pieces of
quantum mechanics.
Books about Physics and Physicists of Bohrs Time

Boorse, Henry A., Lloyd Motz, and Jefferson Hane Weaver. The Atomic
Scientists: A Biographical History. New York: John Wiley, 1989.
Despite its slightly difficult structure and some occasional tough
going there is much to be gleaned from this excellent book.
Recommended for higher-level readers.
Cline, Barbara Lovett. Men Who Made a New Physics. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Well structured and easy-to-read look at the scientists
involved in the exciting early days of the quantum revolution.
(Published in 1965 by Thomas C. Crowell and Co., New York,
as The Questioners.)
Cassidy, David C. Uncertainty: The Life and Times of Werner Heisenberg.
New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1992.
A major biography of the still-controversial Heisenberg, prob-
ably best for higher-level readers.
Crease, Robert P., and Charles C. Mann. The Second Creation: Makers of
Revolution in 20th-Century Physics. New York: Macmillan, 1986.
Covers much of the same material as the Cline book, but in
more detail and at a deeper level. Best for older readers.
French, A. P. Einstein: A Centenary Volume. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1979.
Wonderful selection of articles on Einstein the man and the
scientist.
128 Niels Bohr
Frisch, Otto. What Little I Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. 1979. Reprinted Canto, 1991.
A modest title for an intriguing and readable little book by one of
the participants in the history of the early quantum revolution.
Gamow, George. The Great Physicists From Galileo to Einstein. New
York: Dover Publications, 1988.
The great Gamow takes a look at some major historical physi-
cists and their work. As always with Gamow, readable and
enlightening.
. Thirty Years That Shook Physics. New York: Doubleday, 1966.
A highly readable classic, but now a little dated.
Gilmore, Robert. Alice in Quantumland: An Allegory of Quantum
Physics. New York: Copernicus, 1995.
This clever volume provides an entertaining and accessible
introduction to quantum physics.
Goldsmith, Donald, with Robert Libbon. The Ultimate Einstein. Includes
CD-ROM on the life and work of Einstein. New York: Byron Press
Multimedia Books, 1997.
All in all, this is an excellent package introducing Einstein and
his ideaswell thought out and easy to digest.
Han, M. Y. The Probable Universe. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab
Books, 1993.
Han follows up his successful book The Secret Life of the Quanta
with a closer look at the mysteries and controversies as well as
the theoretical and technological successes of quantum physics.
. The Secret Life of the Quanta. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab
Books, 1990.
Coming at the quanta from a practical rather than theoretical
approach, Han concentrates on explaining how our knowledge
of the quanta allows us to build such high-tech devices as com-
puters, lasers, and the CAT scan. At the same time, he doesnt
neglect either the theoretical or bizarre aspects of his subject.
Heisenberg, Werner. Encounters with Einstein. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Intriguing firsthand look at one great scientist by another.
Hoffmann, Banish. Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel. New York:

Viking Press, 1972.
One of the best, most reliable, and most readable studies of the
thought and style of the great scientist.
. The Strange Story of the Quantum. New York: Dover Publications,
1959.
A highly readable classic, if a little dated today.
Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2007.
This recent biography offers a good look at both Einstein the
person and his work.
Jones, Roger S. Physics for the Rest of Us. Chicago: Contemporary Books,
1992.
Informative, nonmathematical discussions of relativity and
quantum theory told in a straightforward manner, along with
discussions on how both affect our lives and philosophies. Very
readable and recommended.
Jungk, Robert. Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of
the Atomic Scientists. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1956.
A not always reliable anecdotal account.
Lederman, Leon, with Dick Teresi. The God Particle. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Co., 1993.
Highly readable and entertaining discussion of contemporary
physics by the witty Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
Lindley, David. Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg , Bohr, and the Struggle
for the Soul of Science. New York: Doubleday, 2007.
This overview of the uncertainty principle provides an excellent
look at the characters and personalities of three of the most
intriguing scientists of their time and the meaning of the argu-
ment between them.
McCormmach, Russell. Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
A fascinating novel treating the mind and emotions of a physi-
cist in Germany who attempts to understand the disturbing
changes in physics and the world. It may be loosely based on
130 Niels Bohr
Paul Ehrenfest, a friend of both Einstein and Bohr, who com-

mitted suicide in 1933.
Moore, Walter. Schrdinger: Life and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge
A major biography of the always intriguing and often controver-
sial scientist, for higher-level readers.
Morris, Richard. Dismantling the Universe. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1983.
A nontechnical and highly readable look at the thoughts and
development that went into creating modern physics. As with
other books by Morris, clear-headed and worthwhile.
. The Nature of Reality. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1987.
A clearly written and tough-minded look at some of the stranger
implications of modern physics.
Pagels, Heinz R. The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of
Nature. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.
One of the best books on the subject, clearly and intriguingly
written by the late Heinz Pagels, one of the most gifted of the
modern writer-scientists.
Pais, Abraham. Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical
World. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.
Thoughtful and insightful but a little on the difficult side.
. Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and Life of Albert Einstein. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Occasionally tough going, but an excellent look at Einsteins
thought and work.
Peat, David F. Einsteins Moon: Bells Theorem and the Curious Quest
for Quantum Reality. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1990.
Intriguing but occasionally difficult look at some of the stranger
implications of the quantum world. Well worth sticking with
through some of its tougher passages.
Ponomarev, L. I. The Quantum Dice. Philadelphia: Institute of Physics
Publishing, 1993.
A totally engrossing and well-conceived look at the history of
atomic and quantum science.
Pullman, Bernard. Translated by Axel Reisinger. The Atom in the History

of Human Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Pullman provides a fine overall picture of historical thinking
about the atom as well as current concepts.
Rosenblum, Bruce, and Fred Kuttner. Quantum Enigma: Physics
Encounters Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Rosenblum and Kuttner offer an interesting but somewhat dif-
ficult account of quantum mysteries.
Rothman, Tony. Everythings Relative and Other Fables from Science
and Technology. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003.
Rothmans crisp, snappy, and informative presentation makes
this volume fun to read as well as informative.
. A Physicist on Madison Avenue. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2007.
This is physics for all, presented in an entertaining way. Rothman
is superb at getting the more complicated concepts across.
Smolen, Lee. The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the
Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next. New York: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 2006.
This sound, up-to-date book provides a look at string theory,
the most traveled hunting grounds for physicists for the last 30
years. Smolen looks at the history and present state of string
theory and asks, Is it on the right road?
Internet Resources
Bohr, Niels. Banquet Speech. Available online. URL: http://nobelprize.
org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1922/bohr-speech.html. Accessed
May 14, 2007.
The speech was given by Niels Bohr at the Nobel banquet in
Stockholm on December 10, 1922.
. The Constitution of Atoms and Molecules. Published origi-
nally in Philosophical Magazine 1913. Available online. URL: http://
dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/Chem-History/Bohr/Bohr-1913a.html.
Accessed May 14, 2007.
This challenging paper requires a strong knowledge of math but
is also worth a look for Bohrs style of writing and thinking.
132 Niels Bohr
. The Structure of the Atom. Available online. URL: http://

nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1922/bohr-lecture.html.
Bohrs Nobel Prize speech.
NBI (Niels Bohr Institute) History. Available online. URL: http://www.
nbi.dk/nbi-history.html. Accessed May 14, 2007.
The Niels Bohr Institute history page has extensive information
on the institute itself, but the site is of primary interest for the
many brief but informative entries on Bohrs life and works.
It also includes concise but valuable information on the early
days of atomic physics and quantum theory.
The Niels Bohr Archives. Available online. URL: http://www.nba.nbi.
dk/. Accessed May 14, 2007.
This site lists the papers, photographs, letters, and other docu-
ments held by the archives. The site provides a brief description
of the Bohr-Heisenberg controversy and a description of the let-
ters related to it that have been released by the archives. Most
of the material cannot be viewed on the Web site but must be
requested by contacting the archives, but some of Bohrs corre-
spondence on the subject is open to the viewer.
Niels Bohr: The Nobel Prize in Physics, 1922. Nobelprize.org.
Biography from Nobel Lectures. Physics 19221941. Elsevier Publishing
Company, Amsterdam, 1965. Available online. URL: http://nobelprize.
org/nobel prizes/physics/lauretes/1922/bohr-bio.html. Accessed May
14, 2007.
Niels Bohr. Physicist. Available online. URL: http://www.lucidecafe.
com/library/95oct/nbohr.html. Accessed May 14, 2007.
In addition to a brief biographical profile, this site offers links to
multiple Web pages featuring Niels Bohr and his work.
Niels Bohr. A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries. PBS: Public
Broadcasting Service. Available online. URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/
aso/databank/entries/bpbohr.html. Accessed May 14, 2007.
This site provides a biographical sketch issued as part of the
Internet site coverage of the People and Discoveries program
series.
Niels Bohr. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Available online. URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr. Accessed May 14, 2007.
The Wikipedia encyclopedia entry on Bohr contains much

interesting information relating to just about anything you may
want to know about Bohr but, as with all Wikipedia pages, it is
important to double-check the information with other sources
before using it. Wikipedia also has an interesting list of links,
although some may be outdated and no longer available.
Niels Henrik David Bohr Mactutor History of Mathematics Archives.
Turnbull WWW Server, School of Mathematical and Computational
Sciences, University of St Andrew. Available online. URL: http://www-
groups.dcs.st-nd.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Bohr_Niels.html.
This interesting site has a large list of references (articles and
books) relating to Bohr as well as quotations from Bohr and
links to other material.
Nobelprize.org. Available online. URL: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_
prizes/physics/lauretes/1922/bohr-bio.html. Accessed May 14, 2007.
This Web site sponsored by the Nobel Prize Committee offers,
in addition to a brief biography of Niels Bohr, his Nobel Prize
lecture, banquet speech, and links to other resources.
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) Hollywood Presents: Copenhagen.
Available online. URL: http://www.pbs.org/hollywoodpresents/copen-
hagen/story/bohr.html. Accessed May 14, 2007.
This PBS Web site supplements the production Copenhagen,
the intriguing play relating to the Bohr-Heisenberg meeting in
1941 and the controversy and mystery that ensued. It describes
the moral dilemma presented by the meeting and brief biogra-
phies of the people represented in the play, including Bohrs wife
Margrethe.
Scientist: Niels Bohr. Answers.com. Available online. URL: http://
www.answers.com/topic/niels-bohr. Accessed May 15, 2007.
This helpful page of information on Bohr from Answers.com
gives biographies from many different sites directly on their
page without needing to use outside links.
index
Italic page numbers structure 43, B
indicate illustrations 4951 Balmer, Johann 46, 47
Rutherford model barium 88
2729, 28, 3536, Becquerel, Henri 14,
A 43, 49 15
absorption spectra splitting of Bell, John S. 78
46, 47, 47 uranium 85, 88 Berlin Physical
alpha particles 25, 27, Thomson model Society 40
31, 34, 72, 73 15, 28, 28 beryllium 73
alpha rays 25 and wave-particle beta particle 25, 34
aluminum 31 duality 62 beta rays 25
Andersen, Hans atomic bomb xvi, black body radiation
Christian 19 8691, 9399 3941
Andrade, E. 31, 32 atomic collisions 63 Bohr, Aage 88, 90, 93,
anomalous Zeeman Atomic Energy 96, 98, 114
effect 61 Commission Bohr, Christian 81
argon gas 27 (Denmark) 102 Bohr, Ellen Adler
arms race 96, 101 atomic mass 73 68, 7, 7980
atom atomic nucleus 26, Bohr, Harald 7, 11
ancient Greek 2829, 7374 childhood
concept of atomic number 32 experiences 58
1315 atomic particles correspondence
Bohr model 7274, 76. See also from Niels Bohr
4952, 50 specific particles, e.g.: 24, 34, 35
Bohrs research on neutrons death of 103
structure xiv, atomic structure and death of Jenny
3536 4849, 7274, 76. Bohr 80
and discovery of See also atomic letter to UN 98
radiation 15 nucleus on Niels Bohrs
proton-neutron atomic theory, early teaching style 9
model of nucleus 1314 and Niels Bohrs
7374 atomic weight 32 wedding 38
quantum theory Atoms for Peace and outbreak of
and atomic Award 102103 World War I xv
135
136 Niels Bohr
postgraduate work early research 12 theoretical physics

1518 and Einstein 35, 30
and reaction to 5556, 6668 wave-particle
Bohrs atomic escape from duality 64
theory 51 occupied wedding of 3738
at University of Denmark 88, 90 world peace
Copenhagen 10 Faust parody 7576 promotion
Bohr, Henrik George Frischs description 9499
Christian 69, 12, of 58 Bolund Island
18 and Heisenbergs 101102
Bohr, Jenny 7, 7, involvement with Born, Max xv, 63, 64,
910, 80 German nuclear 108
Bohr, Margrethe program xvi, boson 110
(Nrlund) 16, 1719, 8687, 89 British Royal Society
3738, 89, 95 Institute for 12
Bohr, Niels 7, 11, 16, Advanced Study Broglie, Louis de
55, 65, 72, 74, 87, 15 6263
92, 97 Institute for Brownian motion 42
atomic model Theoretical
4952, 50 Physics 5359 C
atomic structure legacy of 113115 calculus 110
research 3536 in Manchester Cambridge University
atomic structure 5253 13
trilogy 4849 and Manhattan Carlsberg Beer
Atoms for Peace Project 9091, Company 55
Award 102103 93 Carlsberg House
childhood and masters thesis work 7677, 95
early education 15 Cassidy, David C. 87,
610 postgraduate work 89
children of 53 with Rutherford cathode rays 13, 22
complementarity in Manchester causality 63
principle 65 24, 2936 cause and effect,
compound nucleus postgraduate work quantum mechanics
theory 76 with Thomson and 108
death of 105106 in Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory
debate over 2024 13, 2025, 27, 55
quantum theory radioactivity CERN (European
7778 research 32, 34 Council for Nuclear
depicted in teaching post at Research) 100, 104
Copenhagen 89 University of Chadwick, James 73
doctoral thesis Copenhagen Chievitz, Ole 9, 81
work 1819 5354 Chita (yacht) 81
Index 137
Christiansen, Einstein, Albert 65, electron 1315

Christian 38 79 and alpha particles
Churchill, Winston on Bohrs atomic 34
91, 93, 95 model 5051 and characteristics
classical mechanics and Bohrs lectures of metals 15
39, 63, 7778 at Physikalische orbit of 43, 4647,
clock-in-a-box Gesellschaft 56, 62
thought experiment 5556 and Paulis
6668, 67 on Bohrs search Exclusion
cloud chamber 2930 for scientific Principle 62
Cockcroft, John 74 truth 106 and problems with
color, photoelectric death of 103 Rutherfords
effect and 42 and Ehrenfests atomic model
complementarity 65, suicide 80 3536
7879, 103, 106 general theory of and Thomsons
compound nucleus 76 relativity 42, 110 atomic model 28
Copenhagen (drama) and Institute for and Uncertainty
xvi, 89 Advanced Study Principle 64
Courant, Richard 17, 2, 103 and wave-particle
6869 leaves Germany xvi duality 62, 63
Curie, Marie 1415, meets Bohr 5556 electron theory of
25, 107 on Paulis relativity metals 15, 1819
article 60 E=mc2 4142
D on quantum emission spectra
Danish Academy of mechanics 4347, 44
Technical Sciences 6364 Encyclopedia of
101 and quantum Mathematical
Danish Royal theory 41, 66 Sciences, The 60
Academy of Sciences relationship with energy
and Literature 105 Bohr xv, 35, discontinuous
Darwin, Charles 7778, 106 nature of 40
Galton 34 special theory of and electron orbits
Democritus 14, 15 relativity 4142, 4647
determinism 63 110 and special theory
Dickens, Charles 22 theory of of relativity 42
Dirac, Paul 59, 80 everything 108 EPR thought
Drude, Paul 17 and Uncertainty experiment 7778
duality 10, 6263 Principle 64 Exclusion Principle.
wave-particle See Paulis Exclusion
E duality 62 Principle
Ehrenfest, Paul 51, Eisenhower, Dwight experimental physics
56, 80 D. 101103 3031
138 Niels Bohr
F Goethe, Johann Hevesy, Georg von

Faust, physicists Wolfgang von 6 31, 5051, 57
parody of 7576 gold 27 high-energy physics
fermion 110 Gorbachev, Mikhail 99 100101
Feynman, Richard 68 gravity 111 Hiroshima 94
fission 89 ground state 46 Hitler, Adolf xv, 81
fluorescence 14 Hffding, Harald
Franck, James 74 H 1011
Frankfurter, Felix 91, Hahn, Otto 8385, 88 Holocaust xvxvi, 81
93 Hansen, Hans Marius hydrogen 44, 45, 46
Frayn, Michael 89 74 hydrogen bomb 96, 99
Frisch, Otto heat, electron orbit
on Bohr as teacher and 46 I
58 Heisenberg, Werner Indian Science
on Bohr at 50 77 72, 87 Congress 104
on Bohrs problem- depicted in inert gas 27
solving skills 31 Copenhagen 89 Institute for Advanced
on Bohrs and German Study 14, 61, 79,
willingness to nuclear program 103
admit error 106 8687, 89 Institute for
on complementarity at Institute for Theoretical Physics
65 Theoretical xiv, 5359, 57, 7174,
and Lise Meitner Physics 59 102
8385 meeting with Bohr Institute of Genetics
on quantum during German 104
physics 4950 occupation of isotope 32, 88
Fuld Hall 1, 2 Denmark xvi, 89
and nucleus model J
G 7374 Joliot-Curie, Irne and
gamma rays 25 and Uncertainty Frdric 73
Gamow, George Principle 64, Jung, Carl 61
7172, 72 6668, 108
Gardner, Martin 109 and wave-particle K
Geiger, Hans 27, 31, duality 64 Klein, Oskar 72
32 Heisenbergs Knudsen, Martin
Gell-Mann, Murray Uncertainty 3839, 53
108 Principle. See Korean War 99
general theory of Uncertainty Kramers, Hendrik 72
relativity 42, 110 Principle
Germany xvxvi, helium, emission L
104105. See also spectrum of 44 Landau, Lev 72
Nazi Germany heroic age of quantum Lederman, Leon 63
glasnost 99 physics 49, 70 Leucippus 14, 15
Index 139
Lie, Trygve 9899 Newtonian physics orbits, of electrons

light 42, 46, 62 63, 110 43, 46, 62
Light and Life New York Herald
Revisited 104 Tribune, The 99 P
London Times 9495 Nicholson, J. W. Pais, Abraham 23,
Lorentz, Hendrik 13, 4345 53, 98
17 Niels Bohr Institute. paradox 74
Los Alamos, New See Institute for particle accelerator
Mexico 9091, 94 Theoretical Physics 74
Lynghuset 5657 Nielsen, Jens Rud 38 particle physics
Nobel Prize 100101, 110
M Bohr xiv, 49 Pauli, Wolfgang 3,
Manhattan Project Einstein 42 5962, 72, 7576,
9093 Pauli 62 104
Marshall, George 96 Rutherford 27 Pauli repulsion 110
mass, special theory Thomson 22 Paulis Exclusion
of relativity and 42 Nordita 100101 Principle 6162
Maxwell, James Clerk Nrlund, Margrethe. Pavillonen 57
22 See Bohr, Margrethe peace activism xvi,
McGill University 27 nuclear arms race 96, 9499, 102103
Meitner, Lise 8385, 101 periodic table 14, 32,
84 nuclear atom 34 33, 34
Mendeleyev, Dmitry nuclear disarmament Philosophical
14 xvi Magazine 38, 48, 52
mercury, emission nuclear fission 89 Philosophical
spectrum of 44 nucleus 26, 2829, Transactions (British
metal, passage of 7374, 76, 88 Royal Society
alpha particles journal) 12
through 34 O photoelectric effect
Mller, Poul Martin Odenwald, Sten 111 4243
10 On the Constitution photon 46, 62, 66
Mollgaard, Holgar 17 of Atoms and Physikalische
Morrison, Philip 79 Molecules (Bohr) Gesellschaft (Physics
4849 Society) 55
N On the Quantum Planck, Max 3941,
Nagasaki 94 Theory of Radiation 43, 55, 62
Nazi Germany 81, 83, and the Structure of Plancks constant (h)
8689 the Atom (Bohr) 52 4041, 46, 47
Nehru, Jawaharal Open Letter to the Plancks theorem. See
104 United Nations xvi quantum theory
neutron, Rutherfords Oppenheimer, J. Podolsky, Boris 77
discovery of 73 Robert 2, 4, 6970, potassium, emission
Newton, Isaac 110 90, 91 spectrum of 45
140 Niels Bohr
Princeton, New Jersey. R at Cavendish

See Institute for radiation, Plancks 2427, 55
Advanced Study constant and 4041 death of 8081
probability 63 radioactive early work with
proton 7273 displacement law 34 Bohr 3036
proton synchrotron radioactive elements in Manchester
particle accelerator 27, 32 2730, 38, 54
100 radioactive tracers 31 at McGill
radioactivity 1315, University 27
Q 27, 32, 34, 7273 proton discovery
quantum mechanics Rayleigh, Lord. 7273
39, 43, 6364, 7778, See Strutt, John Rutherford, Mary 38,
108 William (third baron 76
quantum/quanta Rayleigh) Rydberg, Johannes
4043 relativistic quantum 46, 47
quantum theory field theory 110
Bohr-Einstein relativity 4142, 60, S
debate 7778 110 Schrdinger, Erwin
Bohrs atomic Ris Peninsula 102 59, 62, 6263
model 4951 Rockefeller Institute Science and
Bohrs teaching 104 Civilization
work at Rntgen, Wilhelm (newspaper article)
Copenhagen 53 Conrad 13, 15 9495
and Roosevelt, Franklin Six Roads from
complementarity Delano 91, 93 Newton (Speyer) 78
6466, 6870 Rosen, Nathan 77 Snow, C. P. 30
and emission Royal Danish soccer 5
spectra 44 Academy of Science Soddy, Frederick 27,
EPR thought and Letters 12 32, 107
experiment Rutherford, Ernest 25 sodium, emission
7778 atomic model spectrum of 44, 45
and heroic age of 2729, 28, 49 Solvay Conferences
quantum physics and Bohrs atomic 6668, 72, 104
70 model 50 Sommerfeld, Arnold
and photoelectric and Bohrs paper xv, 55, 60, 64
effect 4243 on atomic Soviet Union 91, 93,
Plancks pioneering structure 4849 96, 99
work 4041 and Bohrs spacetime, string
practical readership at theory and 109
applications Manchester 52 special theory of
113114 and Bohrs relativity 4142,
Rutherfords atomic University of 110
model 43 Copenhagen spectra. See emission
and Uncertainty teaching post 51 spectra
Principle 64 at Carlsberg 76 Speyer, Edward 78
Index 141
stability, of atoms and Bohrs masters University of

3536 thesis work 17 Manchester 24, 27,
stationary states 43 discovery of 3036
Stern, Otto 66 electron 1315, uranium 9, 14, 82,
Strassmann, Fritz 85, 110 85, 88
88 work with Bohr uranium-235 32, 86
string theory xvi, at Cambridge
108109, 111 2025, 30 V
Strutt, John William thorium 27 Villard, Paul U. 25
(3rd Baron Rayleigh) thought experiments
12, 50 6668, 7778 W
superstring theory. Tisvilde 5657, 95, Walton, Ernest
See string theory 105 Thomas Sinton 74
supersymmetry 111 tracers 31 Washington Post, The
surface tension 12 transformation theory 99
synchrocyclotron 107108 wavelength,
particle accelerator photoelectric effect
100 U and 4243
Systems Containing ultraviolet catastrophe wave mechanics 63
Only a Single 3941 wave-particle duality
Nucleus (Bohr) 49 ultraviolet radiation 40 6263
Systems Containing Uncertainty Principle Weisskopf, Victor
Only Several Nuclei 64, 6668, 78, 108 9091
(Bohr) 49 unified field theory 64 Wilson, C. T. R. 2930
United Nations 9799, world peace activism
T 101 xvi, 9499, 102103
Tale of a Danish universal constant 40 World War I xv, 5253
Student (Mller) 10 universe 109110 World War II 8182,
theoretical physics University of Berlin 39 8694
3031 University of
theory of everything California 53 X
(TOE) 108 University of X-ray 13
Thomson, J. J. 21 Copenhagen 6, 811,
atomic model 28 3839, 51, 5354, 60 Y
and Bohrs atomic University of Yearbook of Physics 41
model 50 Gttingen 60

Niels Bohr Atom

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Niels Bohr Atom

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Niels

Ray Spangenburg and

Copyright 2008, 1995 by Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Spangenburg, Ray, 1939

You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at

Text design by Kerry Casey

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper and contains 30 percent postconsumer

1 The Making of a Physicist (18851911)

2 Mysteries of the Atom (19111912)

3 Birth of Bohrs Atom (19131924)

5 The Spirit of Copenhagen (19301938)

6 Open Door to the Nuclear Age (19381945) 83

7 The Final Years (19451962)

8 Rethinking Bohrs Physics

S cience is, above all, a great human adventure. It is the process of

Salk Institute to help scientists in different fields collaborate more

W e would like to thank the many people who helped form

T his book tells the story of world-renowned physicist Niels

pretty negative report. However, when he had the chance to present

including Albert Einstein. Bohr brought many people out of Germany

T he cold late-winter wind of 1948 swept through the sparse

I am ... I am ... sick of myself, he muttered finally, giving the

Soccer and Science

most of the conversing. Talking was as important as breathing to

shops and bookstores and colorful, cluttered rows of red-tile-topped

pickets in the fence and representing them exactly in his carefully

English at Oxford. After passing a teachers examination in 1916, she

Duality: A Lifelong Theme

in Hffdings classestheir conversations frequently dominated by

Plunging into Physics

was radioactivitythe talk of all the scientific circles in France,

Brilliant Beginnings and Loss

doctorate, choosing to continue his work on the electron theory of

thesis, the opening page read: Dedicated with deepest gratitude to

W hen Bohr arrived in Cambridge in late September 1911, he felt

Criticizing the Great J. J.

his less-than-complete command of English. His colleagues couldnt

Bohr went back to his rooms elated. That evening he wrote to

Rutherford and the Story So Far

on scholarship at the Cavendish Laboratory from his native New

This diagram depicts Rutherfords discovery of the nucleus of an atom.

The competition was keen, as Rutherford wrote home to his

Rutherford completed this early work on alpha and beta radia-

Doing Physics in Manchester

of positively charged particles, be repelled (since alpha particles are

particles in his cloud chamber as they scattered from interactions with

Teamwork: Rutherford and Bohr

daydream with purpose. In solving the serious problems of physics,

talks about the smallest details.... Rutherford is such an outstand-

Exploring Atomic Structure

these ideas, he roughed out what is now known as the radioactive

more calculations and went to see Rutherford again. In a letter to

the dilemma that Bohr undertook to solve, and he believed he had

I n the town of Slagelse, about 50 miles southwest of Copenhagen

recommended his own assistant as docent. Now Knudsens profes-

The Black Body Dilemma

A black body, in physics, is one that absorbs all frequencies of

erg-seconds. Today Plancks constant is recognized as one of the

and c represents the speed of light, which is always constant. This

Using Quantum Physics

up of quanta having much smaller energy content, in some cases

The Story of Spectra