Bohr (7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) , Niels Henrik David Bohrwas born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1885. His father, Christian Bohr, was professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen (it is his name which is given to the Bohr shift or Bohr effect), while his mother, Ellen Adler Bohr, came from a wealthy Jewish family prominent in Danish banking and parliamentary circles (in 1891, Bohr was baptized a Lutheran, his father's religion). Despite having a religious background, he later resigned his membership from the Lutheran Church and became an atheist. His brother was Harald Bohr, a mathematician and Olympic footballer who played on the Danish national team. Niels Bohr was a passionate footballer as well, and the two brothers played a number of matches for the Copenhagen-based Akademisk Boldklub, with Niels in goal.
Niels Bohr as a young man. Exact date of photo unknown.
In 1903, Bohr enrolled as an undergraduate at Copenhagen University, initially studying philosophy and mathematics. In 1905, prompted by a gold medal competition sponsored by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, he conducted a series of experiments to examine the properties of surface tension, using his father's laboratory in the university, familiar to him from assisting there since childhood. His essay won the prize, and it was this success that prompted Bohr's decision to abandon philosophy and adopt physics. He continued as a graduate student at the University of Copenhagen, under the physicist Christian Christiansen, receiving his doctorate in 1911.
Niels Bohr as a young man. Exact date of photo unknown.
In 1903, Bohr enrolled as an undergraduate at Copenhagen University, initially studying philosophy and mathematics. In 1905, prompted by a gold medal competition sponsored by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, he conducted a series of experiments to examine the properties of surface tension, using his father's laboratory in the university, familiar to him from assisting there since childhood. His essay won the prize, and it was this success that prompted Bohr's decision to abandon philosophy and adopt physics. He continued as a graduate student at the University of Copenhagen, under the physicist Christian Christiansen, receiving his doctorate in 1911.
As a post-doctoral student, Bohr first conducted experiments under J. J. Thomson, of Trinity College, Cambridge and Cavendish Laboratory. In 1912 he met and later joined Ernest Rutherford at Victoria University of Manchester, where on and off he spent four fruitful years in association with the older physics professor and became part of the 'Nuclear Family' which included scientists such as William Lawrence Bragg, James Chadwick and Hans Geiger. In 1916, Bohr returned permanently to the University of Copenhagen, where he was appointed to the Chair of Theoretical Physics, a position created especially for him. In 1918 he began efforts to establish the University Institute of Theoretical Physics, which he later directed.
Earlier in 1910 Bohr had met Margrethe Nørlund, sister of the mathematician Niels Erik Nørlund.[12] They were married in Copenhagen in 1912. Of their six sons, the oldest died in a boating accident and another died from childhood meningitis. The others went on to lead successful lives, including Aage Bohr, who
became a very successful physicist and, like his father, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1975. His other sons were Hans Henrik, a physician, Erik, a chemical engineer, and Ernest, a lawyer.
