Love, Literature and the Quantum Atom Niels Bohr's 1913 Trilogy Revisited

by Aaserud, Finn; Heilbron, John L.

• ISBN13: 9780199680283
• ISBN10: 0199680280
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-07-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Niels Bohr ranks with Einstein among the physicists of the 20th century. He rose to this status through his invention of the quantum theory of the atom and his leadership in its defense and development. He also ranks with Einstein in his humanism and his sense of responsibility to his science and the society that enabled him to create it. Our book presents unpublished excerpts from extensive correspondence between Bohr and his immediate family, and uses it to describe and analyze the psychological and cultural background to his invention. The book also contains a reprinting of the three papers of 1913 - the Trilogy - in which Bohr worked out the provisional basis of a quantum theory of the atom

Author Biography

Finn Aaserud, Director, Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, Denmark,John L. Heilbron, Professor of History, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; Honorary Fellow, Worcester College, Oxford

Finn Aaserud is Director of the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen.

John L. Heilbron is Professor of History and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Honorary Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

Part 1. Niels Bohr's Private Sphere - as revealed through unpublished family correspondence Finn Aaserud
1. Introduction
2. Finding each other in Copenhagen
3. Niels in Cambridge
4. Niels in Manchester
5. Beginning married life in Copenhagen
6. Conclusion
Part 2. Nascent Science - The scientific and psychological background to Bohr's Trilogy J.L. Heilbron
7. Necessary preliminaries
8. Some physics around 1900
9. "Stupid electrons"
10. Indictment of classical physics
11. Odin the lawgiver
12. The Trilogy
13. Bolts from the blue
Part 3. The Trilogy