Niels Bohr: Pioneer Nuclear Physicist

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 4

Niels Bohr: Pioneer Nuclear Physicist

Niels Bohr. The Man and Hie Sciential By Both Moore. Redder and Stoughton. 436 Pa

The age of the atom came into being largely through the scientific work and influence of Denmark’s Mel* Bohr, modest, unpretentious, gentle of disposition (in spite of the acclaim and honours heaped upon him), a man who made the bomb possible and then exerted every effort to turn the force unleashed into a blessing rather than a potential disaster for humanity. Ruth Moore has tackled his first biography with cogency and sympathy. She is detailed and thorough in her presentation of Bohr the scientist and makes a generous attempt to simplify much of the complex scientific material for the reader who is unfamiliar with nuclear physics. Fortunately she does not allow preocupation with the technical to dominate the story and shows us Bohr the family man, Bohr the sportsman, and above all Bohr the humanist Boro into a Danish family of rarified intellectual standing Niels Bohr inherited from his physiologist father an appreciation of the beauties of nature, a love of Goethe, Shakespeare and Dickens in an early life which exposed him to the best scientific and philosophical thought of Denmark. In spite of the allure of philosophy, epistemology and football, his main interest was physics and his doctorate thesis on the electron theory of metals was erudite and provided' new and unusual material. Research at Cambridge was followed by a brief spell on Rutherford’s staff in Manchester where he formulated ideas which would soon direct the revolution in physics and in Rutherford’s laboratory found a model for his own life and work— it was “a place where the ablest young student* from all around the world gathered around a scientist who encouraged them to reach the greatest heights of which they were capable.” Before long Bohr’s work on the atom was singling him out as a young man of rare talent, if not genius, and his three papers on the constitution of atoms revolutionised physics. Niels Bohr became Professor of Theoretical Physics at Copenhagen, and when his new Institute was opened in

1920, it immediately turned to the quest of finding out why the atom was such an incredible structure, and began establishing a whole new tradition of scientific research. Close ties with Butherford, now at Cambridge, helped to make physics truly international and many of the world’s most gifted and perceptive young physicists were drawn to Copenhagen. Bohr did not rest on bls laurels after being awarded the Nobel Prise for Physics. After patient work in the laboratory, experiments, false starts, conjectures, debate, criticism and brilliant mathematical improvisation, Bohr, in his “Complimentary*’ had the basic answer to the paradoxes quantum physics had posed for the scientific world. By 1932, Bohr’s Institute had become a world centre of physics, a centre where the disparate findings of scientists all over the world were given meaning, focus and direction.

The day World War n engulfed Europe, Bohr and Wheelers’ article on the

mediantom of fission was published and recognised as a classic but Bohr refused offers of sanctuary abroad and remained in Copenhagen after the German invasion of Denmark and, refusing all co-operation with the Nazis, his resolute, kindly face and tweed-dad figure became something of a symbol to his fellow countrymen. Only when arrest was imminent did he slip away to Sweden in a rowing boat and accept an invitation to go to England and from there go to the United States where work on the atom bomb was progressing. From then on, however, his main theme was that possession of the bomb would alter the course of the postwar world, the basic information must be available to all to avoid an arms race, the new power should be used to build a stable peace. But personal appeal* to Churchill, Roosevelt and later Truman proved fruitless.

Says Miss Moore: “One man had tried to change the course of the world. Whether hi* new framework might have avoided the arms race that he so dearly foresaw and the proliferation of nuclear weapons that he feared, noone will know. The attempt to pull the twentieth century political world up to twen-

tieth century science had failed. It was one of the most

valiant and bravest of battles.”

The United States dropped the bomb on Japan and the war ended. Then in 1949 the UJS.S.R. exploded a bomb and the atomic arm* race was on. Bohr sent a letter of appeal to the United Nations but only twelve days later the Korean War broke out and the world became otherwise occupied.

At the now-expanded Institute, life was back to gracious, pre-war pattern* and graduate students had flocked back to the man who had dominated physics for more than 30 years and who now faced the task of helping the post-Bohr era to get a fait start. He was instrumental in creating a European research establishment at Geneva, saw his own

Institute become a centre for training young Scandinavian physicist* and helped to establish Denmark's atomic power plant at Riso. Bohr’s last years until hi* death in 1962 were spent in Denmark, although he travelled widely, giving lecture* and addresses and attending conferences.

It is a fascinating story and although the reader who cannot boast even school physics may find the path through the neutrons and electrons, etc, a little hard to follow, he can still appreciate the brilliance of a scientific brain which transformed a century, and the deep sincerity and tenacity of a man who battled unceasingly to direct the world into a course that he believed would bring peace and abundance to all.