Niels Bohr

1885- 1952

Physicist

 

Ralph Abernathy

 

Danish physicist Niels Henrik David Bohr was born in Copenhagen on October 7 1885. He went to the private Latin School developed the concept of the Bohr nuclear atom which led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922, a mere eleven years after he had received his doctorate from the University of Copenhagen. Following the occupation of Denmark by the Nazis, Bohr fled to the United States, where he worked on the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. Later, however, he was instrumental in convening the first Atoms for Peace Conference in Geneva (1955) and worked to prevent nuclear proliferation. Interestingly, Bohr's son, Aage, was born in 1922 -- the year Bohr received the Nobel Prize -- and Aage himself received the prize for physics in 1975.