Niels Bohr: The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

  • Niels Bohr, in full Niels Henrik David Bohr, (born October 7, 1885, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Niels Bohr, in full Niels Henrik David Bohr, (born October 7, 1885, Copenhagen, Denmark
    Bohr was the son of Christian Bohr, a professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen, and Ellen Adler Bohr who came from a very prominent banking and political family in Denmark. Niels Bohr had an older sister, Jenny Bohr, and a younger brother, Harald Bohr.
  • Life as a Student

    Life as a Student
    In 1903, Bohr began to study at the University of Copenhagen where he registered for philosophy with Professor Høffding, who was his father’s close friend. Along with his brother Harald Bohr, he participated in a small group of students who gathered a few times a month to discuss philosophical and scientific ideas. A few years before Bohr began to study physics, the physicist J. J. Thomson had discovered the existence of electrons and Bohr immersed himself within his articles.
  • Love in the summer of 1909

    Love in the summer of 1909
    In the summer of 1909 Bohr received his masters degree and took a few days holiday with a couple of good friends before work was to begin on his doctorate. One weekend he visited Harold Bohr's close friend Niels Norlund and met norlund's sister Margrethe and from that moment on there was no other for bohr. Margrethe became as enthralled with he as by her.
  • Bohr atomic model: 1912-1913

    Bohr atomic model: 1912-1913
    In 1912 along with Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester having established experimentally that atom's consist of a heavy charged nucleus with substantially lighter negatively charged electrons that orbit.. Bohr felt that electrons could only occupy particular orbits determined by the quantum of action and that electromagnetic radiation from an atom occurred only when an electron jumped to a lower-energy orbit. https://youtu.be/GhAn8xZQ-d8
  • Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics: March 6, 1913

    Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics: March 6, 1913
    Bohr developed the principle of complementarity to explain how two seemingly exclusive properties such as light behaving as a particle and wave, depending on what kind of measurement one made- could nonetheless be reconciled theoretically. This was also famously a time in which he had many good natured arguments with Albert Einstein.
  • The Nobel Prize: Fall 1922

    The Nobel Prize: Fall 1922
    In the fall of 1922 it was announced that Niel Bohr would receive that year's Nobel Prize in Physics for his work. Bohr talked about his work and ended with an exciting announcement: One of the holes in the table of elements, the long missing element number 72, had just been found. With the help of his colleagues Georg Hevesy and Dirk Coster from the Niels Bohr Institute. They succeeded in 1923 experimentally and named the element Hafnium ( Latin for Copenhagen ).
  • The Final Years: 1955

    The Final Years: 1955
    After having returned to Denmark after WWII Niels Bohr went about restoring his institute. Again a place where researchers from around the world could meet and discuss freely. Bohr was a driving force behind many things in our modern life but he was also against the use of nukes and petitioned British and American leaders that an open world where all scientific and technical information should be shared between nations to avoid unwarranted suspicion and fatal misunderstandings.
  • Death: 18 November 1962

    Death: 18 November 1962
    Niels Bohr died on 18 November 1962 at an age of 77.He died of a heart attack at home. He is buried at Assistens Cemetery in Copenhagen.