Nils
Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 7th October, 1885. The
son of a physiology professor he got his PhD in physics from the
University of Copenhagen in 1911.
Bohr
worked with Ernest Rutherford in
Manchester (1912-16) where he developed
a model of atomic structure and helped to establish the validity
of quantum theory.
In
1920 Bohr became director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics
in Copenhagen. Several leading physicists went to work with Bohr
including Edward Teller and Werner
Heisenberg. In 1922 he won the Nobel Prize for physics.
Otto
Frisch, a young scientist who fled from Nazi
Germany worked closely with Bohr in Copenhagen. In 1938 Frisch
introduced Bohr to Lise Meitner, a
Jewish refugee from Germany.
Meitner explained her theory of uranium fission and argued that
by splitting the atom it was possible to use a few pounds of uranium
to create the explosive and destructive power of many thousands
of pounds of dynamite.
At
a conference held in Washington
in January, 1939, Bohr explained the possibility of creating nuclear
weapons. After working with Enrico Fermi
and Leo Szilard, Bohr showed that only
the isotope uranium-235 would undergo fission with slow neutrons.
Bohr
continued with his research after Denmark was invaded by the German
Army. With the help of the British Secret Service he escaped
to Sweden in 1943. He then moved on to the USA
where he joined Robert Oppenheimer,
Edward Teller, Enrico
Fermi, David Bohm, James
Franck, James Chadwick, Otto
Frisch, Emilio Segre, Eugene
Wigner, Felix Bloch, Leo
Szilard and Klaus Fuchs on the Manhattan
Project. Over the next two years Bohr helped develop the atom
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After
the Second World War Bohr returned to Denmark
where he argued for strict controls on the manufacture of nuclear
weapons. Nils Bohr died in Copenhagen on 18th November, 1962.
(1)
Conversation between William Stephenson
and President Franklin D. Roosevelt
(February, 1943)
Roosevelt: "Could Bohr be whisked out from under Nazi noses
and brought to the Manhattan Project?"
Stephenson:
"It will have to be a British mission. Niels Bohr is a stubborn
pacifist. He does not believe his work in Copenhagen will benefit
the Germany military caste. Nor is he likely to join an American
enterprise which has as its sole objective the construction of a
bomb. But he is in constant touch with old colleagues in England
whose integrity he respects."
(1)
Niels Bohr, letter to President Franklin
D. Roosevelt (3rd July,
1944)
A weapon of an unparalleled power is being created which will
completely change all future conditions of warfare. Unless some
agreement about the control of the use of the new active materials
can be obtained in due time, any temporary advantage, however great,
may be outweighed by a perpetual menace to human security. An initiative,
aiming at forestalling a fateful competition, should serve to uproot
any cause of distrust between the powers of whose harmonious collaboration
the fate of coming generations will depend.
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