Niels Bohr

Science / Great Scientists

Danish physicist was a physicist, philosopher, teacher, and humanist, known for atomic structure with electrons orbiting nucleus  

Brief biography of Niels Bohr, best known for his 'solar system' model of atomic structure, the foundation of quantum mechanics.    

  

Niels Bohr (1885-1962), Danish physicist, was one of the greatest physical chemists of the 20^th century, famous for his contribution to quantum physics and atomic structure that won him Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. He proposed the 'Solar System' model of atomic structure in which electrons orbit the central nucleus.  He married Margrette Norlind in 1912. They had six sons, the fourth, Aage Bohr, followed in his footsteps and won his own Nobel Prize in 1975.  

Early Life

Niels Henrik David Bohr was born on October 7, 1885, in a mansion owned by his maternal grandmother of influential Jewish banking family. His father, Christian Bohr, was a professor of physiology at Copenhagen University. The children grew up in an atmosphere in which pursuit of knowledge, intellectual discussions and culture were greatly encouraged. He loved football.

A Hopeful Beginning

Bohr studied at Copenhagen University and did experimental work by using his father's physiology laboratory since there was no physics laboratory at that time. In 1906, he won the Gold Medal from the Royal Danish Academy of the Sciences for his measurement of the surface tension of water.

On 1911, Bohr completed his PhD and went to England the same year. In Cambridge he met Ernest Rutherford, who just published his discovery that most of the mass of an atom is in its center, the nucleus. Bohr joined Rutherford's team in Manchester working on the structure of the atom. Rutherford became his role model and lifelong friend.