Nils Bohr was born on October 7, 1885 in Copenhagen, Denmark, the capital of the Kingdom of Denmark, the largest city and the largest port in Northern Europe, and the world's largest international metropolis. Bohr was born into a very wealthy family, his father Christine Bohr is a professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen, has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine twice, Bohr's mother comes from a very wealthy family, her father is Bohr's grandfather is a famous local politician, banker, in general, Bohr's family conditions at that time belonged to the richest class in Denmark.
Bohr (right) and his brother
Bohr's excellent family conditions gave Bohr a good education, and in 1903 Bohr entered the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the University of Copenhagen to study physics. At that time, the Danish National Academy of Sciences would organize a contest of knowledge for university students every year, and one year the physics exam was to measure the surface tension of liquids, and since Bohr's father was a professor at the University of Copenhagen, Bohr could use the conditions of his father's laboratory to conduct experiments, and the papers he created based on experiments were very valuable, so in 1907 Bohr won the gold medal of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters for his paper on the surface tension of water.
Bohr's handwriting
In 1909, Bohr received a Master of Science degree from the University of Copenhagen and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Copenhagen in 1911. Because of his father's connections, in 1911 he received a scholarship from the Carlsberg Brewing Company to study abroad for a year, bohr chose England. In September 1911, the 26-year-old Bohr walked into Cavendish's laboratory, which was the famous Thomson known as a modern electronic theory master, but Bohr's experience in Cavendish's laboratory was not pleasant, which is the focus of this article.
Bohr with his wife
The thing is, Bohr obtained a doctorate in 1911, he wrote a thesis on metal electrons, in that era, the classical physics building founded by Newton was in a turbulent stage, Einstein, Planck and other scientists have touched the door of quantum physics, bohr although young, also felt that classical physics can no longer describe certain phenomena of atoms, must create a new theory to adapt to this microscopic level, so he came to Cambridge, England with his own theory He came to Cavendish Labs and wanted to conduct exchange research with his idol, Thomson.
Who is Thomson? Thomson proposed in 1904 that atoms are composed of positively charged particles and negatively charged electrons, which is the famous raisin cake model, which regards electrons as raisins, which are evenly distributed within the atom. Moreover, more importantly, in 1906, Thomson also won the Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical and experimental research on gas conductivity, so Thomson's status in the British academic community at that time was still very high.
Thomson
Bohr found that Thomson's atomic model had many irrationalities and could not explain the phenomena that had been discovered so far, so Bohr came to Cavendish's laboratory to exchange his views with Thomson and point out that the original atomic model proposed by Thomson was unreasonable. Thomson, a Nobel Laureate in Physics, is a genius known in the UK, especially in the academic circles of Cambridge, UK, and is a representative of authority. And the 26-year-old, who "recklessly" pointed out his mistakes when he first met the genius, Thomson ignored him. Bohr was disappointed to find that the great physicist liked to show his genius and was not interested in his theory, and he thought he could get help from this genius physicist when he came here, but he did not expect to be so snubbed.
Bohr meets with the Rutherford family
The Royal Society in London rejected Bohr's submission, and the journals of the Royal Society did not accept Bohr's paper on the atomic model, Bohr was discouraged, in November 1911, he went to Manchester and joined Rutherford's research team, when Rutherford had proposed a planetary atomic model of the movement of electrons around the nucleus, for this model, Bohr was inspired, after two years of research in Rutherford's research team, in 1913 Bohr also proposed his own atomic model, That is, the model of the orbital motion of electrons around the nucleus, the introduction of the quantized orbit of the electron outside the nucleus, to solve the problem of the stability of the atomic structure in Rutherford's atomic model.
In 1921, Bohr founded the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen to delve into quantum mechanics. The Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen attracted a large number of outstanding physicists, many of whom were later masters of quantum mechanics, and 9 of them won the Nobel Prize in Physics, which was later the Copenhagen School.
Looking back, it was precisely because of his arrogance that Thomson missed such a physicist who was more talented than himself, so this tells us a truth: no matter what height it reaches, humility is necessary.
Bohr and Einstein