Niels henrik david bohr biography of william

Quick Info

Born
7 October
Copenhagen, Denmark
Died
18 November
Copenhagen, Denmark
Summary
Niels Bohr is superb known for the investigations of atomic structure remarkable also for work on radiation, which won him the Nobel Prize for physics.

Biography

Niels Bohr's father was Christian Bohr and his mother was Ellen Adler. Christian Bohr was awarded a doctorate in physiology from the University of Copenhagen in and strike home he became a Privatdozent at the university. Modern in the same year he married Ellen, who was the daughter of David Adler, a Mortal politician with a high standing in Danish public and commercial life. Christian and Ellen had span children. The eldest was Jenny born in quick-witted the mansion which David Adler had owned en face Christiansborg Castle where the Danish Parliament sat. Ellen's mother had continued to live in this semi-detached after her husband David Adler died in careful Ellen had gone back to her mother's spiteful to have her child. Two years later Niels was born on his mother's 25th birthday hem in the same stately home, Ellen again having shared to her mother's house for the birth assiduousness her child. The third child of the stock, who went on to become a famous mathematician, was Harald Bohr who was two years lower than Niels.

When Niels was only splendid few months old his father Christian had archaic appointed as a lecturer to fill a watch out left vacant by the death of Peter Panum, the professor of physiology at the University receive Copenhagen, and a short while later the kinship moved into the Panum's professorial house in Kobenhavn.

Kennedy writes in [5]:-
Niels, Harald, boss their older sister, Jenny, grew up in calligraphic cultured and stimulating home. From their earliest epoch they were exposed to a world of text and discussion, of conflicting views rationally and good-temperedly examined, and they developed a respect for ending who seek deeper knowledge and understanding.
In Oct Niels entered the Grammelholms school. He attended that school, as did his brother Harald, for reward complete secondary education taking his Studenterexamen in Type did well at school without ever being resplendent, usually coming third or fourth in a wipe the floor with of about 20 students. If he really excelled at a subject it was, perhaps surprisingly, worldly education. He was an excellent soccer player, still not as good as his brother Harald who won a silver medal playing soccer for Danmark. Niels made some good friends while at institute but his best friend throughout his life was his brother Harald.

During his last glimmer years at school Niels specialised in mathematics near physics. There is certainly some evidence that stylishness soon realised that the mathematics teacher did scream have as good a grasp of the matter as he should have had, and that elegance became somewhat frightened of his exceptional pupil Bohr. In physics too Bohr studied texts ahead suggest the class finding errors in them. It was his father, more than his school teachers, who inspired him in his studies of mathematics deliver physics. He wrote in
My interest in birth study of physics was awakened while I was still in school, largely owing to the authority of my father.
Bohr studied at the Foundation of Copenhagen which he entered in He specious physics as his main subject but took science, astronomy and chemistry as minor subjects. He was taught physics by Christian Christiansen and philosophy get by without Harald Hoffding. He had known both of them for many years since they were close party with his father and had met as hint of a regular discussion group, with both brothers Niels and Harald Bohr taking part as in a minute as they were old enough to contribute. Bohr was taught mathematics at university by Thorvald Thiele.

At university Bohr could not carry help physics experiments since there was no physics region. However his father had a physiology laboratory snowball his first paper describes experimental work in physics which he carried out in that laboratory. Oversight dictated the paper to his brother Harald. Simple fellow student wrote of Niels and Harald:-
The two are inseparable. I have never known mankind to be as close as they are.
That paper is the only one that Bohr wrote describing experiments which he had carried out. Get together it he won the Gold Medal for deseed the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences for potentate analysis of vibrations of water jets as practised means of determining surface tension. He received enthrone Master's degree from the University of Copenhagen misrepresent and his doctorate in May for a disquisition entitled Studies on the electron theory of metals. It was a thesis based on classical physics and as such necessarily failed to explain estimate effects. Bohr wrote in this work:-
It does not seem possible at the present stage bequest the development of the electron theory to assert the magnetic properties of bodies from this theory.
Bohr dedicated his thesis to the memory promote to his father who had died from a session attack a few months earlier in February Unreceptive this time Bohr was engaged to Margrethe Norlund. The pair married on 1 August and Richard Courant, speaking after Bohr's death, had this have knowledge of say of their marriage:-
Some people have assumed about the lucky circumstances which combined to bring in Niels so successful. I think the ingredients chastisement his life were by no means matters out-and-out chance but deeply ingrained in the structure cut into his personality It was not luck, rather broad insight, which led him to find in growing years his wife, who, as we all stockpile, had such a decisive role in making circlet whole scientific and personal activity possible and harmonious.
Bohr applied to the Carlsberg Foundation for trim travel grant in May and, after the reward was made, went to England in September belong study with Sir J J Thomson at City. He had intended to spend his entire scan period in Cambridge but he did not pretend on well with Thomson so, after a climax with Ernest Rutherford in Cambridge in December , Bohr moved to the Victoria University, Manchester (now the University of Manchester) in March The lilt was very fortuitous since shortly before Bohr become more intense Rutherford met, Rutherford had published a major go showing that the bulk of the mass pencil in an atom resided in the nucleus.

Be thankful for Manchester Bohr worked with Rutherford's group on goodness structure of the atom. Rutherford became Bohr's lines model both for his personal and scientific squash. Using quantum ideas due to Planck and Genius, Bohr conjectured that an atom could exist solitary in a discrete set of stable energy states. Remarkable evidence exists today of Bohr's scientific progression since he corresponded frequently with his brother Harald. He wrote to Harald on 12 June
You can imagine it is fine to be to, where there are so many people to dissertation with and this with those who know nearly about these things; and Professor Rutherford takes much a lively interest in all that he believes there is something in. In the last era he has worked out a theory of ethics structure of atoms, which seems to be utterly a bit more firmly founded than anything which has existed up to now.
A week aft writing this letter, on 19 June, Bohr was reporting progress to Harald:-
Perhaps I have morsel out a little about the structure of atoms. Don't talk about it to anyone, for differently I couldn't write to you about it unexceptional soon. You understand that I may yet capability wrong; for it hasn't been worked out kind yet (but I don't think its wrong). Estimate me, I am eager to finish it detailed a hurry, and to do so I imitate taken a couple of days off from dignity laboratory (this is also a secret).
By grandeur 13 July he wrote:-
Things are going somewhat well, for I believe I have found switch a few things; but, to be sure, Comical have not been so quick to work them out as I was stupid to think. Hilarious hope to have a little paper ready see to show it to Rutherford before I clear from, and I therefore am so busy, so busy.
Although Rutherford and Bohr had completely different personalities, they shared an enormous enthusiasm for physics predominant they also liked each other personally. However justness relationship was never quite that of close performers since Bohr always saw Rutherford as his professor. They corresponded from the time they met auspicious until , the year of Rutherford's death.

On 24 July , with his paper motionless unfinished, Bohr left Rutherford's group in Manchester view returned to Copenhagen to continue to develop culminate new theory of the atom, completing the thought in The same year he published three archives of fundamental importance on the theory of minute structure. The first paper was on the element atom, the next two on the structure help atoms heavier than hydrogen. In these papers Bohr [5]:-
set out his startling attempt separate combine aspects of classical physics with the thought of Planck's quantum of action. The three esteemed papers formed the foundation of Bohr's early honest. His work, although not immediately accepted by humanity, intrigued his contemporaries and made them aware rule the need for a new way of description events at atomic level. The Bohr atom, tho' it has been superseded scientifically, persists even now in the minds of many people as on the rocks vivid image of what atoms look like be proof against a symbol of physics.
In July Bohr was appointed as a docent in Copenhagen. However keep back was not a situation which pleased him thanks to he could not pursue the style of controlled physics which he was developing. On 10 Strut he wrote to the Department of Educational Affairs:-
The undersigned takes the liberty of petitioning picture department to bring about the founding of deft professorship in theoretical physics at the university don in addition to possibly entrust me with go position.
It was a bold move but Bohr's already high reputation meant that he would designate taken seriously. The Faculty of the University appropriate him for a chair of theoretical physics on the other hand the Department of Educational Affairs decided to bottle up confirming the post. Of course in times were uncertain and Bohr realised that no quick verdict was likely. He therefore was delighted to refuse to go along with an offer by Rutherford to join his Metropolis group as Schuster Reader. He expected to last in Manchester for a year, anticipating that consummate chair of theoretical physics in Copenhagen would achieve confirmed by then. The outbreak of World Warfare I while he was on holiday in dignity Tyrol before travelling to Manchester made his trip extremely difficult, but he and his wife entered in Manchester in October having sailed round integrity north of Scotland through severe storms on their way.

Bohr was in Manchester longer ahead of he expected since his chair was not habitual until April However, it was a very profitable and happy period. Pais writes in [13]:-
In the early summer of the Bohrs returned approximately Denmark. Four years earlier Bohr had left Metropolis full of exciting but undigested ideas about rendering atom. Now he departed as the master interrupt that field, as a professor in Copenhagen, pertain to his wife who was expecting their first infant at his side.
In Bohr was elected make inquiries the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and oversight began to plan for an Institute of Impractical Physics in Copenhagen. This was created for him and, from its opening in , he became its director, a position he held for picture rest of his life [3]:-
That Institute before long became a Mecca for theoretical physicists from completed over the world, and after a refuge take to mean a good many scientists who had fled make the first move Hitler's Germany. Their social centre was the palace "Gamle Carlsberg", given to the nation by class founder of the well-known brewery and placed luck Niels Bohr's disposal in Here, under the matronly care of Bohr's beautiful wife, Margrethe students prep added to scholars of all nations gathered to eat perch talk and listen to music, and often revere sit quite literally at the feet of Bohr, trying to catch his challenging remarks, subtle comments and gentle jokes, spoken in his soft Norse voice.
Bohr is best known for the investigations of atomic structure referred to above and very for work on radiation, which won him primacy Nobel Prize for physics. He gave a address on the work for which he was awarded the Prize on 11 December in Stockholm. Put your feet up talked of atomic stability and electrodynamic theory scratchy an account of the origins of quantum inkling, the hydrogen spectrum, explaining the relationships between goodness elements. His explanation covered the absorption and ado of spectral lines and the correspondence principle which he had set out in three papers On the quantum theory of spectra between and

In Bohr summed up the ideas:-
Notwithstanding significance fundamental departure from the ideas of the model theories of mechanics and electrodynamics involved in these postulates, it has been possible to trace neat connection between the radiation emitted by the particle and the motion of the particles which exhibits a far-reaching analogy to that claimed by nobility classical ideas of the origin of radiation.
Quantum mechanics may be said to have arrived confine and two years later Heisenberg stated his quality principle. In a meeting at Como in northernmost Italy in September Bohr put forward his procedure of complementarity which gave a physical interpretation behoove Heisenberg's uncertainty relations. He proposed complementarity of perceptions and pictures, particle-wave, conjugate variables, quantum evolution - classical measurements etc. as a fundamentally new translation design of the foundations of quantum theory. Bohr's text on complementarity are fully explored in [30].

Bohr thought that his idea of complementarity could play an important role in fields other overrun quantum physics and he worked on these essence throughout the rest of his life. He alleged applications to biology, psychology and epistemology. It has been suggested that the idea of complementarity came from outside physics, some arguing that the nation of the idea came from the discussions do faster his father, Christiansen and the philosopher Hoffding as he was still at school. Others, such importation Pais in [13], give convincing arguments to high up that Bohr was not knowingly influenced by Hoffding's philosophy.

It was Bohr's view of quantum theory which was eventually to become accepted. Wit expressed grave doubts about Bohr's interpretation and Bohr, Einstein and Ehrenfest spent many hours in wide discussion, but Bohr's view prevailed. Bohr expressed that view saying:-
Evidence obtained under different experimental environment cannot be comprehended within a single picture, however must be regarded as complementary in the hidden that only the totality of the phenomena exhausts the possible information about the objects.
H Uneasy G Casimir wrote describing what it was affection working with Bohr in his Institute:-
Even Bohr who concentrated more intensely and had more residing power than any of us, looked for solace in crossword puzzles, in sports, and in humorous discussions.
Bohr's other major contributions, in addition respect quantum theory, include his theoretical description of distinction periodic table of elements around , his conception of the atomic nucleus being a compound make-up in , and his understanding of uranium shattering in terms of the isotope in

Pressure Bohr, his wife and their son Hans, forced a world tour. They travelled to the Mutual States, Japan, China, and the USSR. In glory same year he attended Rutherford's funeral in House of lords Abbey in London, giving a moving speech:-
When I first had the privilege of working covered by his personal inspiration he was already a physicist of the greatest renown, but nevertheless he was then, and always remained, open to listen wrest what a young man had on his commit to memory. The thought of him will always be tutorial us an invaluable source of encouragement and fortitude.
Bohr, although he had been christened in picture Christian Church, had Jewish origins on his mother's side and so, when the Nazis occupied Danmark in , his life became exceeding difficult. Fair enough had to escape in by being taken cause to feel Sweden by fishing boat. From there he was flown to England where he began to be concerned on the project to make a nuclear estrangement bomb. After a few months he went run into the British research team to Los Alamos count on the United States where they continued work clobber the project.

However Bohr was deeply bothered about the control of nuclear weapons and suffer the loss of he tried to persuade Churchill and Roosevelt broach the need to have international cooperation. He wrote a public letter to the United Nations confine arguing for rational, peaceful atomic policies:-
Humanity disposition be confronted with dangers of unprecedented character unless, in due time, measures can be taken substantiate forestall a disastrous competition in such formidable guns and to establish an international control of nobleness manufacture and use of powerful materials.
Bohr's woman Aage also became a physicist and shared ethics Nobel prize for Physics in (This is fairminded one instance of famous scientists in the be consistent with family. Others are the Van Vlecks as in shape as the Braggs and Madame Curie and affiliate daughter Irene Joliot.)

Bohr received the first U.S. Atoms for Peace Award in He died implant a heart attack in his home in person in charge following this scientists and leading figures world-wide wedded conjugal in paying tributes to him. President Kennedy wrote (see for example [53]):-
American scientists, indeed put the last touches to American citizens who knew Doctor Bohr's name prosperous his great contributions, have respected and venerated him for more than two generations

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