Abstract
When Bohr became a professor in Copenhagen, he had some connections in Sweden, few in Germany, and almost none in France. Most of his foreign contacts were in Britain, in whose scientific community he was well socialized. This did not mean, however, that his atomic theory was accepted among British colleagues.
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Notes
- 1.
Rutherford to Bohr, 20 March 1913 (BCW 2: 583). On the reception of Bohr’s theory, see Kragh (2011, 2012, Chap. 3).
- 2.
“There were so many political things that then happened in the world and about which people have different views and young people sometimes wanted to think separately from older people.” Oral History interview with the Dutch physicist J. M. Burgers (AHQP).
- 3.
Darwin to Bohr, 20 July 1919, with an enclosed manuscript “A Critique of the Foundations of Physics”; Bohr to Darwin, July 1919, draft of a presumably unsent letter; “or rather mystical” is inserted into the sentence above the line.
- 4.
Darwin to Bohr, 30 May 1919. In his talk “La structure de l’atome” at the Solvay conference in 1921, Thomson did not mention Bohr’s model.
- 5.
Bohr to Hemsalech, [August–October] 1919; Hemsalech to Bohr, 2 January 1920. Bohr also invited W. Makower (Bohr to Makower, 21 February 1920).
- 6.
Biggs to Bohr, 8 July 1918; 3 February 1919; 16 September 1920; Bohr to Biggs, [January] 1921.
- 7.
Levi (1985); Hevesy to Bohr, 25 October 1919; Bohr to Hevesy, 30 November 1919; 1 June 1920.
- 8.
Robertson (1979, 44–47); on Hansen, see Pihl (1983, 399–400). For Bohr’s 1921 expectations that the “spectroscopic research will occupy first place” in his institute, see BCW 3 (296).
- 9.
Bohr to Hevesy, 1 July 1914; 8 August 1914; Bohr to Oseen, 28 September 1914.
- 10.
“Das Problem, die Rydberg-Ritz’sche Constante durch das Planck’sche h auszudrücken, hat mir schon lange vorgeschwebt… Wenn ich auch vorläufig noch etwas skeptisch bin gegenüber den Atommodellen überhaupt, so liegt in der Berechnung jener Constanten fraglos eine grosse Leistung vor.” Sommerfeld to Bohr, 4 September 1913 (BCW 2: 603).
- 11.
Sommerfeld (1915). On Sommerfeld’s work and its importance for the reception of Bohr’s theory, see HDQT 1 (212–23), Heilbron (1967), Kragh (1985), Seth (2010). “Because of you, Bohr’s idea has become completely convincing,” Einstein to Sommerfeld, 8 February 1916; 3 August 1916 (DM).
- 12.
Bohr to Rutherford, 20 October 1919; Bohr to Ehrenfest, 22 October 1919; Rubinowicz to Bohr, 6 November 1919; Bohr to Sommerfeld, 19 November 1919. On his stay in Copenhagen, see also Rubinowicz to Epstein, 26 October 1919; 29 April 1920.
- 13.
Harald Bohr to Sommerfeld, 14 October 1919. “Durch die Kriegslasten und unerträgliche Friedensbedingungen ist es Deutschland, das bisher an seinen zahlreichen Universitäten und Hochschulen experimentelle Forschung mit reichen Mitteln gefördert hat, auf lange Zeit unmöglich gemacht, die Wissenschaft wie bisher zu pflegen. Zugleich mit Deutschland ist fast der ganze europäische Continent verarmt. Das glückliche Dänemark kann in die Bresche treten. Es wird dies um so lieber tun, als es dabei zugleich sich selbst in dem Namen eines seiner hervorragensten Söhne ehrt. Das Institut des Herrn Bohr sollte nicht nur dem dänischen wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs dienen, es sollte eine internationale Arbeitsstätte auch für Talente des Auslands werden, denen die eigene Heimat nicht mehr die goldene Freicheit der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit gewären kann. Wie früher im Wiener Radium Institut so mögen künftig Forscher aller Länder zu besonderen Studien in Kopenhagen sich treffen und im Bohrschen Institut für Atomphysik gemeinsame Culturideale verfolgen.” Sommerfeld to the Carlsberg Fond, 26 October 1919, English translation in Robertson (1979, 34–35). On the Vienna Radium Institute and its dramatic decline after World War I because of economic hardships in Austria, see the correspondence between Stefan Meyer and Rutherford, in particular Meyer to Rutherford, 22 January 1920 (Eve 1939).
- 14.
“Ich sehe ihn nicht als Ausländer an,” Sommerfeld to Lande, 31 March 1921. For the full text of the letter and analysis of its context, see Forman (1970, 214–17). For explanations of the differences and disagreements between Bohr’s approach based on the correspondence argument and Sommerfeld’s formal quantization rules, see Sommerfeld (1942), Darrigol (1992, Chap. 6).
- 15.
Sommerfeld to Bohr, 11 November 1920 (BCW 3: 690–91); 18 February 1921; Sommerfeld to Einstein, June 1918 (SWB); Planck to Bohr, 30 March 1920.
- 16.
For the pioneering and classic discussion of the cultural climate for science in Weimar Germany, see Forman (1971) and on the methodological and historiographic significance of Forman’s approach for the history and sociology of science (Carson et al. 2011). On reformers in the Prussian Kultusministerium, see Forman (1967, 59–65), Born (1978, 200) and L. Lichtenstein to Sommerfeld, 14 January 1926 (DM).
- 17.
Bohr to Franck, 18 October 1920; 29 January 1921; Franck to Bohr, 15 April 1921.
- 18.
Somewhat different descriptions of bureaucratic struggles to choose a successor to Debye in Göttingen are presented in IMN 2 (301–02, 356–57), HDQT 1 (292–94), Hund (1987), Dahms (2002). On Born’s appointment as Ordinarius for experimental physics, and eventually as professor of theoretical physics, and on his quantum research program, see Greenspan (2005), Schirrmacher (2019).
- 19.
Born (1928), HDQT 1 (361–63), Born to Sommerfeld, 13 May 1922, quoted in IMN 2 (357–58).
- 20.
On behalf of the Göttingen physico-mathematical seminar, David Hilbert invited Bohr to be their first postwar visiting professor in the summer term of 1921. Because of an illness and overwork, Bohr postponed his planned visit until the following year. Hilbert to Bohr, 10 November 1920; 11 November 1920; 18 April 1921; Bohr to Hilbert, 22 November 1920.
- 21.
Franck to Bohr, 29 July 1922; 23 December 1922.
- 22.
Bohr to Franck, 16 September 1921; 27 September 1921; Hertz to Bohr, 29 September 1921; Bohr to Hertz, 8 October 1921; 14 November 1921; 26 January 1922.
- 23.
Franck to Bohr, 25 September 1921; 29 September 1921; 21 February 1922. Born to Bohr, 4 March 1923: “ob Sie es für richtig halten, das Resultat zu publizieren… Ich möchte auf diesem, Ihren eigenen Arbeitsgebiete, nichts publizieren, das von Ihnen nicht gebilligt werden könnte.”
- 24.
Bohr to Rask-Ørsted Fond, 31 January 1920 (NBA).
- 25.
Radder (1982, 226); Coster to Bohr, 11 July 1920; Bohr to Coster, 20 July 1920.
- 26.
Bohr to Coster, 3 July 1922; Coster to Bohr, 3 August 1922.
- 27.
Bohr (1922). On Bohr’s theory of the periodic system and chemists’ and physicists’ diverging views on the element 72, see Kragh (1979, 2012, Chap. 7), Scerri (1994).
- 28.
Bohr to Coster, 3 July 1922; 5 August 1922; Coster to Bohr, 15 July 1922; 16 July 1922; 28 July 1922 (BCW 4: 674–8).
- 29.
Kragh (1980), Robertson (1979, 69–73); Coster to Auer, 24 January 1923; 14 March 1923; 27 March 1923.
- 30.
Bohr to Auer, 5 July 1922; 25 September 1922; 11 December 1922; Auer to Bohr, 12 September 1922.
- 31.
Bohr to Richardson, 25 January 1919; Bohr to Rutherford, 24 November 1918.
- 32.
Lorentz to Bohr, 16 February 1924; 4 June 1926; Bohr to Lorentz, 3 March 1924; 2 July 1925; 24 June 1926; Rassow to Bohr, 29 January 1924; Bohr to Rassow, 28 March 1924 (BGC).
- 33.
In the period from 1927 to 1934, the balance would shift more toward the German language: 74 versus 40 publications, and from 1935 to 1941, to the English: 153 versus 24 publications. Bound collection of institute’s reprints Afhandlinger, Universitetets Institut for Teoretisk Fysik (NBA).
- 34.
Bohr to Richardson, 12 June 1922.
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Kojevnikov, A. (2020). International Networking. In: The Copenhagen Network. SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59188-5_3
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