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Niels Bohr
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Born
Niels Bohr was born in Copenhagen. He was the son of Christian and Ellen Bohr. -
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schooling
He received his early education from the Gammelholm Latin School which he joined when he was seven. From 1903 he attended the Copenhagen University where his major was physics, which he studied under Professor Christian Christiansen. -
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got a degree
In 1909, he earned a master’s degree in physics and went on to complete his PhD in physics in 1911, both from the University of Copenhagen. His doctoral dissertation was on the electron theory of metals. -
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meet up
In 1911, he traveled to England and met J. J. Thompson of the Cavendish Laboratory at the Cambridge University. He conducted some research on cathode rays, but failed to impress Thomson. Later, Ernest Rutherford invited him to conduct post-doctoral research in England on the atomic structures.
In 1913, Bohr’s paper on atomic structure was published which became the basis of the famous ‘old quantum theory’. -
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college
From 1914 to 1916, he worked as a lecturer of physics at the Victoria University of Manchester, UK.
In 1916, he became a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Copenhagen, a post he held for 46 years. He founded the ‘Institute of Theoretical Physics’ at the Copenhagen University in 1920 and also served as its administrator until 1962. -
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atom study
During World War II, he fled from Denmark 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.
From 1938 until his death, he was the president of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and supervised the first phase of the Commission's program for the peaceful uses of atomic energy.