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Born Niels Henrik David Bohr to Physiologist Christian Bohr and Ellen Adler Bohr in Copenhagen. He grew up in a very educated household with his younger brother Harald, who himself would go on to become a Professor in Mathematics.
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Bohr earned a Doctorate in physics from Copenhagen University. While still a student at Copenhagen he won the Academy of Sciences contest for his experiment on measuring liquid surface tension using oscillating fluid jets.
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Bohr expanded upon Rutherford's model for atomic structure by stating electrons must have a fixed orbital path around a dense, positively charged nucleus of an atom. The different orbital levels are of different energy values, and radiation is emitted/absorbed when an electron jumps between energy levels. This was the first atomic model to incorporate Planck's quantum theory and is the atomic model accepted to this day.
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Bohr is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on atomic structure.
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Bohr was dedicated to the peaceful applications of atomic physics and urged for the complete sharing of scientific knowledge and discoveries between different nations in his "Open Letter to the United Nations."
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Towards the end of his life Bohr took interest in the field of molecular biology. His final and unfinished article titled "Light and Life revisited" would be published in the year after his death in Copenhagen in 1962.