top of page

Characters in Rutherford's life

Niels Bohr.jpg

Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

    Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr met in late 1911 and began working together in 1912.

    While Rutherford was a born experimenter (despite a slight tendency to clumsiness), Bohr soon abandoned laboratory work to concentrate on theory. It would appear that he was even more clumsy than his mentor.

    Nevertheless, their collaboration was most fruitful, since it gave birth to a model of the atom that is still taught today (even if it does not fully explain the world of the infinitely small).

    However, in the case of Bohr, the bonds that were forged from the spring of 1912 had another meaning: the young Niels, who had lost his father the year before, found in Ernest an older man to serve as a reference (even though they were only 14 years apart).

​

    Moreover, when Niels Bohr got married in the summer of 1912, he left Rutherford's laboratory in Manchester only very briefly: after having married Margrethe on August 1, Niels was already back in England on the 12th: he was eager to introduce his young wife to the one who would become his surrogate father.


    The two images opposite show Margrethe and Niels during their engagement, in 1910, and during their golden wedding, in 1962.
Niels Bohr died on November 18, 1962, three months after the second photo.

18108621016178375.jpg

       But let's go back to the days of their youth.

       

    Upon his return from Manchester in 1912, Niels became a lecturer at thePolytekniske Læreanstalt (Polytechnical Educational Institution) in Copenhagen, as assistant to Martin Knudsen. But the situation does not suit him at all: he mainly teaches medical students, he has neither the time, nor the equipment, nor the staff to pursue his research.

 

      In March 1914, he therefore requested the creation of a position as professor of theoretical physics at the University of Copenhagen.Rutherford then wrote him a rave letter of recommendation... totally justified, in view of the atomic theory that Niels Bohr developed in 1913.  

​

  Two months later, however, Rutherford wrote to Bohr again to inform him that Charles Galton Darwin would soon be vacating the lectureship he had held for two years in the physics department at the University of Manchester.  

 

     "Preliminary inquiries show that not many men of promise are available. I should like to get a young fellow with some originality in him."

 

      Rutherford does not wish to invite Bohr too directly to take this position: he knows that the Danish researcher's project is to obtain the creation of a tailormade professorship in Copenhagen. But Bohr understands the implication very easily; and he knows that the developments he hopes for in his native country are unlikely to come about quickly. 

He therefore quits his job and leaves for two years to Manchester.

​

       Margrethe and Niels first settled in Didsbury, to the south of the city (and more precisely in Victoria Avenue, according to Margrethe's memories collected in 1963 and transcribed on the website of the American Institute of Physics). 

     Niels is a lecturer, but also has time to carry out experiments and work on his own theories. He is also one of the few to push forward the physics department at that time, due to the fact that many young researchers are engaged in the world conflict and Rutherford himself is very busy with his activities within theBoard of Invention and Research.

​

To be continued....

Sources :

​

bottom of page