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Niels Bohr and nuclear physics

OCT 01, 1963
John Archibald Wheeler

No one can take up the background of the contributions of Niels Bohr to nuclear physics without being reminded at once of the first paper he ever published, “The Determination of the Surface Tension of Water by the Method of Jet Vibration”. It appeared in 1909 when he was 24 years old. It and a second paper on the same subject in the following year marked early stages in Bohr’s lifelong interest in liquid drops and their vibrations. Twenty‐eight years later the vibrating fluid sphere found in his hands a new application as a model for nuclear excitations; thirty years later it became his model for nuclear fission.

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References

  1. 1. N. Bohr, Roy. Soc. (London) Phil. Trans. A209, 281 (1909).

  2. 2. N. Bohr, Roy. Soc. (London) Proc. A84, 395 (1910).

  3. 3. N. Bohr and F. Kalckar, Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Math.‐Fys. Meddelser 14, No. 10 (1937).

  4. 4. N. Bohr, Phys. Rev. 55, 418 (1939).https://doi.org/PHRVAO

  5. 5. N. Bohr and J. A. Wheeler, Phys. Rev. 56, 426 (1939).https://doi.org/PHRVAO

  6. 6. N. Bohr, Phil. Mag. 25, 10 (1913).

  7. 7. Felix Bloch, Physics Today, October 1963, p. 32.

  8. 8. N. Bohr, Phys. Soc. (London) Proc. 78, 1083 (1961).

  9. 9. C. F. von Weizsäcker, Z. Physik 88, 612 (1934); https://doi.org/ZEPYAA
    E. J. Williams, Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Mat.‐Fys. Meddelser 13, 4 (1935).

  10. 10. Reprinted in N. Bohr, Nature 137, 344 (1936).https://doi.org/NATUAS

  11. 11. Report of a correspondent in Nature 137, 351 (1936).

  12. 12. G. Breit and E. P. Wigner, Phys. Rev. 49, 519 (1936).https://doi.org/PHRVAO

  13. 13. N. Bohr and F. Kalckar, reference 3.

  14. 14. N. Bohr, R. Peierls, and G. Placzek, Nature 144, 200 (1939).https://doi.org/NATUAS

  15. 15. For an account of this conversation see the article by L. Rosenfeld in Fysisk Tidsskrift 60, 65 (1963).

  16. 16. For more on Bohr’s position on nuclear energy and his stand for an open world, see for example J. A. Wheeler, Physics Today, January 1963, p. 30.

  17. 17. J. Rainwater, Phys. Rev. 79, 432 (1950), https://doi.org/PHRVAO
    submitted for publication 17 April 1950

  18. 18. D. L. Hill and J. A. Wheeler, Phys. Rev. 89, 1102 (1953).https://doi.org/PHRVAO

More about the authors

John Archibald Wheeler, Princeton University.

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Volume 16, Number 10

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