CONTENTS 1 A Dane for all seasons = 1 (a) Themes = 1 (b) Some personal recollections = 4 (c) A tour through this book = 14 2 'In Denmark I was born ...' = 32 3 Boyhood = 42 4 Toward the twentieth century: from ancient optics to relativity theory = 52 (a) 1903 = 52 (b) The nature of light; beginnings = 53 (c) Particles or waves? = 56 (d) Color, visible and invisible = 60 (e) Of Maxwell's theory, Hertz's experiment, and the definition of classical physics = 63 (f) Trouble with the aether: the Michelson-Morley experiment = 66 (g) In which classical physics comes to an end and Einstein makes his first appearance = 68 5 Natura facit saltum: the roots of quantum physics = 74 (a) The age of continuity = 74 (b) Kirchhoff's law = 75 (c) 1860-1896 = 77 (d) 1896: physics takes a bizarre turn = 78 (e) Introducing Max Planck = 79 (f) A brief digression on statistical mechanics = 80 (g) In which Planck stumbles on a new law that ushered in the physics of the twentieth century = 82 (h) Particles or waves? = 87 6 Student days = 92 (a) Physics in Denmark, from a college for the clergy to the epoch of <TEX>$$\emptyset$$</TEX> rsted = 92 (b) In which Bohr begins his university studies and starts mobilizing help in writing = 97 (c) The atom: status in 1909 = 103 (d) Niels Bohr, M.Sc., Ph.D. = 107 (e) Death of father. Bohr becomes engaged = 111 7 In which Bohr goes to England for postdoctoral research = 117 (a) Cambridge: Thomson, father of the electron = 117 (b) Manchester: Rutherford, father of the nucleus = 121 8 Bohr, father of the atom = 132 (a) Young man in a hurry = 132 (b) In which Bohr leaves the church and gets married = 133 (c) The Rutherford memorandum = 135 (d) 'The language of spectra ... a true atomic music of the spheres' = 139 (e) In which Bohr hears about the Balmer formula = 143 (f) Triumph over logic: the hydrogen atom = 146 (g) Reactions, including Bohr's own = 152 9 How Bohr secured his permanent base of operations = 160 (a) The early schools in quantum physics = 160 (b) In which Bohr returns to Manchester and then becomes Denmark's first professor of theoretical physics = 163 (c) In which Bohr acquires his own institute = 166 10 'It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair' = 176 (a) Mathematics in physics = 176 (b) The old quantum theory 1913-1916: sketches = 179 (c) In pursuit of principles: Ehrenfest, Einstein, and Bohr = 189 (d) The crisis = 196 (e) Bohr and the periodic table of elements = 202 (f) The Nobel Prize = 210 11 Bohr and Einstein = 224 (a) Comparisons = 224 (b) First encounters = 227 (c) More on Einstein and the light-quantum = 230 (d) 'The culmination of the crisis': the BKS proposal = 232 (e) The new era dawns: de Broglie = 239 (f) Spin = 241 12 'A modern Viking who comes on a great errand' = 249 (a) Bohr & Sons = 249 (b) International recognition = 251 (c) First trip to America = 253 (d) Bohr as fund raiser = 255 (e) The institute up till mid-1925. Introducing Heisenberg = 260 13 'Then the whole picture changes completely': the discovery of quantum mechanics = 267 (a) A last look back: Bohr as 'director of atomic theory' = 267 (b) Kramers in 1924 = 270 (c) Heisenberg in 1924 = 272 (d) 1925: how quantum mechanics emerged 'quite vaguely from the fog' = 275 (e) Bohr's earliest reactions = 279 (f) Early 1926: the second coming of quantum mechanics = 280 (g) The summer of 1926: Born on probability, causality, and determinism = 284 (h) Appendix. c- and q-numbers for pedestrians = 289 14 The Spirit of Copenhagen = 295 (a) The Copenhagen team in 1926. Heisenberg resolves the helium puzzle = 295 (b) In which Schr<TEX>$$\ddot o$$</TEX>dinger comes on a visit = 298 (c) Prelude to complementarity. The Bohr-Heisenberg dialog = 300 (d) The uncertainty relations, with a look back at the correspondence principle = 304 (e) Complementarity: a new kind of relativity = 309 (f) Solvay 1927. The Bohr-Einstein dialog begins = 316 15 Looking into the atomic nucleus = 324 (a) Beginnings of a new direction for Bohr and his school = 324 (b) Theoretical nuclear physics: the prehistoric era = 325 (c) Great progress: the first artificial transmutation of chemical elements and the first signs of a new force. Great confusion: the proton-electron model of the nucleus = 327 (d) In which quantum mechanics reveals nuclear paradoxes and the neutron is discovered = 330 (e) In which the Bohrs move to the Residence of Honor = 332 (f) In which Bohr takes nuclear matters in hand = 335 (g) Being a brief prelude to the war and the years thereafter = 341 16 Toward the edge of physics in the Bohr style, and a bit beyond = 346 (a) Particles and fields = 346 (b) QED = 350 (c) Spin (continued). The positron. The meson = 352 (d) Bohr on QED = 358 (e) Bohr and the crisis of 1929. The neutrino = 364 17 How Bohr orchestrated experimental progress in the 1930s, in physics and in biology = 375 (a) Four fateful factors = 375 (b) The first accelerators = 375 (c) Weaver at the helm = 379 (d) Troubles in Germany = 381 (e) Bohr and the Rockefeller foundation's emergency program = 383 (f) The discovery of induced radioactivity = 386 (g) Four fateful factors fit = 387 (h) How Hevesy introduced isotopic tracers in biology = 388 (i) Bohr as fund raiser (continued) = 394 (j) Denmark's first accelerators and the fifth fateful factor = 398 18 Of sad events and of major journeys = 407 (a) Days of sorrow = 407 (b) Times of travel = 413 19 'We are suspended in language' = 420 (a) Bohr and philosophy: 'It was, in a way, my life' = 420 (b) Complementarity (continued). More on the Bohr-Einstein dialog. A new definition of'phenomenon' = 425 (c) Bohr on statistical mechanics = 436 (d) Complementarism = 438 20 Fission = 452 (a) The early days, including Bohr's discovery of the role of uranium 235 = 452 (b) Fission in Copenhagen = 458 (c) Atomic energy? Atomic weapons? = 460 (d) Bohr as president of the Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab = 464 21 Bohr, pioneer of 'glasnost' = 473 (a) Introduction = 473 (b) Denmark and Germany, from 16 November 1864 until 4 May 1945 = 474 (c) Bohr's war years, the Scandinavian episode = 479 (d) Bohr's war years, the Anglo-American episode = 490 (e) Bohr, Churchill, Roosevelt, and the atomic bomb = 497 22 In which Bohr moves full steam into his later years = 509 (a) Prolog = 509 (b) The later writings, 1945-1962 = 510 (c) Glasnost 1950: Bohr's open letters to the United Nations = 513 (d) CERN = 519 (e) Nordita = 521 (f) Ris<TEX>$$\emptyset$$</TEX> = 523 (g) The later travels = 528 (h) The final half year = 529 23 Epilog = 534 Appendix A synopsis of this book in the form of a chronology = 538 Index of names = 547 Index of subjects = 553