Aage Niels Bohr was a nuclear physicist who won the Nobel Prize. His father, Niels Bohr, was renowned for his pioneering contributions to atomic structure and quantum theory. As the only one of his father’s six children to study physics, he began assisting him in writing articles and letters while he was a student at the University of Copenhagen. However, his education was cut short when the Germans, who had already invaded Denmark, ordered their arrest. They were fortunate enough to escape to Norway and then England. Here, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research formally appointed young Bohr as a junior researcher. However, he acted mostly as his father’s personal assistant and traveled to the United States multiple times to participate in Manhattan Project. After the war, he returned to Denmark to finish his education. Subsequently, he became a research fellow at the University of Copenhagen and quickly rose through the ranks to become director of the Niels Bohr Institute. Later, he resigned from the position and devoted his remaining years to research.
Youth and Early Life
Aage Niels Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 19, 1922. In the same year that Aage was born, his father, Niels Bohr, was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contributions to the understanding of the atomic structure and quantum theory. The name of his mother was Margrethe Bohr (née Nrlund).
His early life was spent in his father’s quarter at the Institute of Theoretical Physics (later called the Niels Bohr Institute) of the University of Copenhagen. Later, when he was approximately ten years old, his family relocated to the mansion in Carlsberg.
At both of these locations, they had a number of renowned scholars, many of whom were eminent physicists, whom they frequently visited. As a result, he spent his youth in distinguished company. However, he was the only youngster to develop an interest in physics as a result. His other brothers pursued other careers.
Aage completed all of his education at Sortedam Gymnasium (H. Adler’s faeelleskole). A few months after Hitler’s occupation of Denmark in 1940, he enrolled at the University of Copenhagen to study physics. He had begun assisting his father with writing articles and letters at this point.
Hitler declared in September 1943 that all Jews will be transported to concentration camps. Despite the fact that Aage’s parents were baptized Christians, his paternal grandmother Ellen Adler Bohr was Jewish, and this meant that the family was not really protected. They were also labeled Jewish by the Germans.
In October 1943, the family was able to flee to neutral Norway, which was not under German authority, with the aid of the Danish resistance. From there, the father and son took separate British Overseas Airways Corporation-operated Havilland Mosquito flights to England.
Aage Bohr was officially appointed as a junior researcher in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in London, where his father was involved with the atomic energy project. However, he primarily acted as his father’s personal assistant and secretary.
During this time, they made multiple trips to the United States under false names and participated in the Manhattan Project. Upon the conclusion of World War II in August 1945, they quickly returned to Denmark.
After returning home, Aage Bohr immediately resumed his studies and earned his master’s degree in 1946. Certain facets of atomic halting difficulties were the subject of his dissertation.
Aage Bohr’s Career
Soon after completing his master’s degree in 1946, Aage Bohr joined the University of Copenhagen’s Institute for Theoretical Physics as a research scholar. During his time there, he joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and migrated to the United States in 1948.
He was also a visiting fellow at Columbia University in New York from January 1949 to August 1950. Here, he met Isidor Isaac Rabi, who sparked his interest in recent discoveries on the ultrafine structure of deuterium.
He also met James Rainwater at this time, with whom he would eventually share the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Rainwater discussed with him a variation of Niels Bohr’s earlier drop model of the nucleus. Unlike the previous model, however, Rainwater’s model could explain a non-spherical charge distribution.
In 1950, Bohr returned to Denmark and began working with Ben Mottelson on this subject. They began comparing the theoretical work to experimental data collectively. Consequently, they were able to combine Maria Goeppert-shell Mayer’s model with Rainwater’s drop model of the nucleus.
In 1951, 1952, and 1953, the results of these tests were published in three separate papers. They were soon deemed essential to the comprehension and advancement of nuclear fusion. They were given the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery much later.
Even after completing the project, Bohr continued to collaborate with Mottelson. In 1954, he completed his doctoral studies and received his Ph.D. The title of his dissertation was “Rotational States of Atomic Nuclei.” Thus, he completed his doctoral dissertation one year after completing his Nobel Prize-winning research.
Bohr was appointed professor of physics at the University of Copenhagen in 1956. In 1957, he joined the Board of Nordisk Institut för Teoretisk Atomfysik (NORDITA), a theoretical physics institute created in the same year as the Institute of Theoretical Physics.
His father, Niels Bohr, held the position of Director at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the time. After his passing in 1962, Aage Bohr took over as director. After three years, the institute was officially renamed the Niels Bohr Institute, and Aage Bohr continued to serve as its director.
As Institute Director, he emphasized the relationship between theoretical and experimental activity. In addition, he emphasized the need for international cooperation in the advancement of research.
In 1970, he resigned as Director of the Niels Bohr Institute but remained there to conduct research. In 1975, he resumed his position as director of the Nordisk Institut for Teoretisk Atomfysik (NORDITA).
In 1981, he gave up all administrative obligations and returned to focusing only on research. He retired from all forms of active service in 1992.
His Major Opera
Aage N. Bohr is most renowned for his work on the mobility of subatomic particles alongside Ben R. Mottelson. In this endeavor, he was influenced by James Rainwater, whom he met at Columbia University in New York.
Rainwater had developed a form of the drop model, which hypothesized that a nucleus was similar to a balloon containing balls; just as the balls’ movement inside the balloon distorts the balloon’s surface, so too does the movement of nucleons inside the nucleus distort the nucleus’ surface.
Bohr was quite enthusiastic about this notion, and upon his return to Copenhagen, he and Mottelson began testing with it. Eventually, they demonstrated separately that the motion of subatomic particles can alter the shape of the nucleus.
It not only questioned the widely held belief that all nuclei are precisely spherical but also reconciled Maria Goeppert-shell Mayer’s model with James Rainwater’s liquid drop model.
In addition, the pair published a two-volume monograph titled “Nuclear Structure.” The first volume, named “Single-Particle Motion,” was published in 1969, while the second, “Nuclear Deformations,” was released in 1975.
Aage’s Awards & Achievements
Together with Ben R. Mottelson and James Rainwater, Aage N. Bohr was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 “for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and for the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection.”
Moreover, he was awarded the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics in 1960, the Atoms for Peace Award in 1969, the H.C. rested Medal in 1970, the Rutherford Medal in 1972, and the John Price Wetherill Medal in 1974.
Bohr’s Personal Life
Bohr married Marietta Soffer in March 1950, while he was a resident of New York City. The marriage had three children: Vilhelm and Tomas, both sons, and Margrethe, a daughter. Tomas is a professor of physics at the Technical University of Denmark, where he specializes in fluid dynamics.
Marietta passed away on October 2, 1978
In 1981, Bohr married Bente Scharff Meyer. The marriage lasted till his passing in 2009.
Aage Bohr appreciated classical music and was an avid pianist. On September 9, 2009, he passed away in Copenhagen at the age of 87.
Estimated Net Worth
Aage Bohr has an estimated net worth of $9 million dollars and earns mostly as a nuclear scientist, pedagogue, university professor, academic, and physicist. We lack sufficient facts regarding Aage Bohr’s automobiles and lifestyle.
Trivia
The Nobel Prize was awarded to Niels Bohr in 1922 and Aage Bohr in 1975. This makes them one of only six father-son couples to have won the Nobel Prize. Moreover, they are one of just four father-and-son combinations that have won the Nobel Prize in Physics.