A Conversation for Bohr and the Bomb
Niels Bohr - Great Dane
Kul_Tegin Started conversation Oct 28, 2011
Niels Bohr was a brilliant scientist and an intellectual giant who outsmarted Einstein in their debates.
He was also a profound thinker on philosophical matters.
He was the main proponent of the standard 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of quantum mechanics.
Our model of the atom is essentially due to him and he introduced the concept (widely known today) of 'quantum jump'.
He provided the theoretical explanation for atomic spectra and the periodic table of elements.
The immediate pre-war history of the 'atom bomb' as I understand it (it was in a BBC documentary) is this:
In 1938 Otto Hahn and Hans Strassman in Berlin performed experiments where they bombarded Uranium nuclei with neutrons and analysed the results.
They unexpectedly got elements like Barium from middle of periodic table.
They could not explain this and contacted their former colleague Lisa Meitner who was then in exile in Sweden (she was Jewish).
She correctly interpreted it as a splitting up of the Uranium nucleus. What we now call 'nuclear fission'.
She informed Niels Bohr in Denmark, who immediately realised what that meant in terms of energy.
Bohr contacted his former friend and adversary Einstein in Princeton.
Einstein and some other exiles from German dominated central Europe wrote a letter to President Roosevelt.
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Niels Bohr - Great Dane
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