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Niels Henrik David Bohr
Niels Bohr was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and humanitarian whose revolutionary theories on atomic structures helped shape research worldwide. -
Became a Professor
Bohr became a professor at the University of Copenhagen. -
Nobel Prize
1920, he became director of the newly constructed "Institute of Theoretical Physics" and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 "for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them." -
Work
Bohr went on to work with the group of scientists who were at the forefront of research on nuclear fission during the late 1930s, to which he contributed the liquid droplet theory. -
Fleeing Europe
Adolf Hitler's rise in power, Bohr was able to offer German Jewish physicists refuge at his institute in Copenhagen, which in turn led to travel to the United States for many. Once Denmark became occupied by Nazi forces, the Bohr family escaped to Sweden, Bohr then worked with the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was being created -
Atoms for Peace
He helped to establish CERN, a Europe-based particle physics research facility, in 1954 and put together the Atoms for Peace Conference of 1955. In 1957, Bohr received the Atoms for Peace Award for his trailblazing theories and efforts to use atomic energy responsibly. -
Death
Bohr was a prolific writer with more than 100 publications to his name. After having a stroke, he died on November 18, 1962, in Copenhagen. Bohr’s son Aage shared with two others the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on motion in atomic nuclei.