Niels Bohr

October seventh marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Niels Bohr. Bohr achieved international stature when he devised the first quantum model of the atom in 1913. He went on to contribute greatly to the emergence of the “new” quantum theory as it was developed in the late 1920s, generating ideas and theories, and providing much of the philosophical framework for the quantum theory as we now understand it. Later, he invented the liquid‐drop model of the nucleus (perhaps reflecting his earliest interests in the surface tension of drops in a jet), and worked on the theory of nuclear fission. Bohr also created in Copenhagen an institute—initially for theoretical physics, but later expanded—to which many of the best young physicists flocked, and where they hammered out the answers to many pressing problems in physics. Bohr was always in the forefront, probing, questioning, reflecting, but above all, discussing physics with his guests.

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