Born This Day: Niels Bohr – Nazi Smasher!

Oct. 7, 1885 – Nov. 18, 1962

Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist, born in Copenhagen, who was the first to apply the quantum theory, which restricts the energy of a system to certain discrete values, to the problem of atomic and molecular structure. For this work he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922.

He developed the so-called Bohr theory of the atom and liquid model of the nucleus. Bohr was of Jewish origin and when the Nazis occupied Denmark he escaped in 1943 to Sweden on a fishing boat. From there he was flown to England where he began to work on the project to make a nuclear fission bomb. After a few months he went with the British research team to Los Alamos in the USA where they continued work on the project. From Today In Science History.

Read his story:




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From: Marvels of Science #1 (Feb. 1944). © Charlton Comics. Art by Sid Greene.