Download Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr
AKA Niels Henrik David Bohr
Born: 7-Oct-1885
Birthplace: Copenhagen, Denmark
Died: 18-Nov-1962
Location of death: Copenhagen, Denmark
Cause of death: Stroke
Remains: Buried, Assistens Cemetery, Copenhagen, Denmark
Gender: Male
Religion: Lutheran
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist
Nationality: Denmark
Executive summary: Father of Quantum Theory
Danish physicist Niels Bohr studied under J. J. Thomson, who discouraged his ideas, and under Ernest
Rutherford, whose work was expanded by Bohr into a new theory on the structure of the atom in 1913. Bohr
postulated that electrons travel in fixed orbits around the atom's nucleus, and further explained how electrons
emit or absorb energy, work that earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr's atomic diagram held
that the outer orbits hold more electrons than inner orbits, that atoms traveling from one orbit to another emit
tiny amounts of radiation, and that these orbits determine chemical properties of an atom.
Bohr's theory, elaborated and expanded by other physicists, formed the basis for the developing science of
quantum mechanics. He is best known for two concepts — the correspondence principle, and the
complementarity principle. The former holds that to untangle the contradictions between "old" and "new"
physics, new theories must both describe atomic phenomena correctly and be applicable to conventional
phenomena; the latter holds that wave and particle aspects of nature are complementary and can never both be
true simultaneously.
Though raised and baptized a Christian, his mother was Jewish, and Bohr fled Denmark during World War II,
coming to America, where he worked on the Manhattan Project. After the war he became an outspoken activist
against nuclear weapons and for the peaceful use of atomic energy. He was also a co-founder of the European
Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
Bohr's brother, mathematician Harald August Bohr (1887-1951), developed a theory of "almost periodic"
functions, and won a Silver Medal playing soccer for the Danish national team in the 1908 Olympics. Niels
Bohr's son, Aage N. Bohr, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 for describing the collective model of the
atomic nucleus.
Erwin Schrödinger
AKA Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
Born: 12-Aug-1887
Birthplace: Vienna, Austria
Died: 4-Jan-1961
Location of death: Vienna, Austria
Cause of death: Tuberculosis
Remains: Buried, Alpbacher Friedhof, Tirol, Austria
Gender: Male
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist
Nationality: Austria
Executive summary: Schrödinger's wave equation
Military service: German Army (WWI, Italian Front)
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933, for his 1926 introduction of Schrödinger's
wave, the mathematical equation of wave mechanics that is still the most widely used piece of mathematics in modern
quantum theory. It posits a non-relativistic wave equation that governs how electrons behave within the hydrogen atom.
He worked on analytical mechanics, applications of partial differential equations to dynamics, atomic spectroscopy, color
theory, cosmology, counter (or detector) statistics, eigenvalue problems, electromagnetic theory, general relativity, James
Clerk Maxwell's equations, meson physics, optics, radiation theory, solid-state physics, statistical mechanics,
thermodynamics, and the unified field theory. He also wrote extensively on the history of science, and existential
questions of life.
He introduced his famous "Schrödinger's cat" paradox in a 1935 paper, "The present situation in quantum mechanics".
The cat quandary was intended to illustrate the absurdity of quantum physics, which must deal in probabilities rather than
observable certainties. The scenario varies, but generally "Schrödinger's cat" tells the story of a cat sharing a closed box
with an elaborate booby trap consisting of a vial of cyanide gas, a small but deadly quantity of radioactive material, and a
radiation detector. If the radiation detector senses decay in the radioactive material at the atomic level it triggers the
release of the poison gas and the cat is killed; but if radioactive decay is not detected then the cat enjoys a quiet nap and
no harm is done. So long as the box remains closed scientists cannot observe whether the cat is dead, but until the box is
opened and the cat is observed, the cat exists in an indeterminate state and must be assumed to be both dead and alive.
Beyond this odd conundrum lies an odder paradox of quantum physics, that quantum level observations of position with
regard to momentum are indeed as indeterminate as the cat's state of life or death.
Though Catholic by faith Schrödinger was infuriated by Germany's anti-Jewish laws. In 1933, when an English scientist
visited the University of Berlin to try to arrange safe exit from Germany for several of the school's Jewish scientists,
Schrödinger — one of the world's most famous scientists — startled the visitor by asking if he could arrange passage for
himself and his family. After leaving Germany he spent a few years at Cambridge, then relocated to Austria's University
of Graz — which became Adolf Hitler University after the Nazis invaded Austria, leading Schrödinger to flee another
nation. He eventually took residence at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, where he worked for seventeen years,
by far his longest stint at any one institution.
Schrödinger had a long, happy, and very open marriage with Annemarie Bertel, daughter of a respected chemist. He kept
a detailed log of his numerous sexual escapades, included a teen-aged girl he seduced and impregnated while acting as her
math tutor. He had children by at least three of his mistresses, including a daughter by Hilde March, the wife of his
colleague Arthur March, who was himself a lover of Schrödinger's wife.