Niels Henrik David Bohr

It's Fact
Niels Bohr came from a distinguished family in Denmark.His father was a Physiology professor at University of Copenhagen.Niels's brother Harold was a good soccer player and played in the 1908 Danish soccer team that won the Olympic silver medal in 1908 London Olympics.When Harold's doctoral dissertation was examined at the university of Copenhagen,there were more soccer fans wishing to attend this public examination that there were mathematicians!!!Harold Bohr later became an eminent mathematician.One of Niels Bohr's sons Aage Bohr became a physicist and shared the Nobel prize for physics in 1975.


Niels Henrik Bohr
``````````(1885-1962)

~~~~~~~The "Great Dane" of 20th Century Physics~~~~


Born : Oct ,7 1885 Copenhagen,Denmark
Died : Nov 18,1962(aged77)

Copenhagen,Denmark
Nationality : Danish

Field : Physics and philosophy of Science
Institutions : University of Copenhagen
Academic advisor : Copenhagen interpretation
complementarity principle

Bohr model of th Hydrogen atom

Notable prizes : Nobel Prize for physics,1922

If  you search for the greatest theoretical physicist of 20th century most would say its Einstein.After him the most important physicist would be a Danish scientist who pioneered quantum theory and its applications.He is none other than Niels Bohr.


Bohr won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922 for research in atom.He did much work on Quantum theory and introduced the principle of complementary to physics


in 1913 Bohr introduced his model of the atom explaining the Rutherford's ideas that nucleus of the atom is in middle and electrons orbiting around it.According to classical physics these electrons spend energy and at a later time would spiral and fall on to the nucleus,which did not confirm with experimental result.Bohr took this challenge and introduced the idea that electrons travel in discrete orbits around the atomic nucleus and the idea that an electron could jump from a higher orbit to a lower orbit,emitting a light quantum knows as a photon of energy.This idea became the basic for later work on quantum theory,which was originally put forward by Planck.Quantum theory postulates that energy is emitted and absorbed by packets of energy called quanta,whose energy is proportional to their frequency.

Bohr also conceived the principle of Complementary that indicates item can have several contradictory properties.For example light can be viewed both as waves and a stream of particles depending on the situations.This probabilistic new physics of Bohr was against the determinism(The idea that future events can be predicted with accuracy)of classical physics that some physicists liked,most notably Einstein.Bohr and Einstein had friendly arguments on this issue.They are known as Bohr-Einstein Debates.Einstein said"God does not play Dice" commenting on the statistical approach in Quantum mechanics and once Bohr told Einstein "stop telling God what to do".Today most physicists prefer Bohr's approach to quantum mechanics rather than Einstein's ideas.During these debates Einstein pointed out an error in Uncertainty principle to Bhor.Late Bohr spent a whole night thinking and pointed out a discrepancy in Einstein's argument using General theory of  Relativity.which was the brainchild of Einstein himself!!!

Bohr went to USA and worked on the Manhattan project during WWII although he was a pacifist.During his time in USA he was known by the name Nicholas Baker.After the war he returned to his home country and worked on areas of physics as well as peaceful uses of nuclear energy.He once said "That is why i went to America,they didn't need my help in making the atomic bomb".


Many thanks to: http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page  

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