Niels Bohr
Physicist · 1885-1962 · Physics, stage 3: Meet the physicists
Applied quantum ideas to the atom and shaped how the resulting theory was interpreted.
Overview
Niels Bohr founded and directed the institute in Copenhagen that trained most of the first generation of quantum physicists. His 1913 model of the atom allowed electrons only in certain orbits and had them emit or absorb light when moving between them, which reproduced the observed hydrogen spectrum and won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. When the full theory arrived in the mid-1920s he turned to interpreting it, arguing for complementarity: that wave and particle descriptions are both needed, apply in mutually exclusive experimental setups, and never conflict because they are never used at once. His long exchange with Einstein over whether quantum mechanics is complete is among the most productive disagreements in the subject. His interpretive essays are the place to start; the 1913 papers are technical.
Where to start reading
On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules 1913
The three-part paper introducing quantised electron orbits and deriving the hydrogen spectrum from them.
Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature 1934
A collection of his essays setting out complementarity and his account of what quantum mechanics says about measurement and description.
Part of
Sources
- Niels Bohr Nobel Prize
- Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Niels Bohr Britannica
