Niels Bohr ranks with Einstein among the physicists of the 20th century. He rose to this status through his invention of the quantum theory of the atom and his leadership in its defense and development. He also ranks with Einstein in his humanism and his sense of responsibility to his science and the society that enabled him to create it. Our book presents unpublished excerpts from extensive correspondence between Bohr and his immediate family, and uses it to describe and analyze the psychological and cultural background to his invention. The book also contains a reprinting of the three papers of 1913 - the Trilogy- in which Bohr worked out the provisional basis of a quantum theory of the atom.
Finn Aaserud is Director of the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen. John L. Heilbron is Professor of History and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Honorary Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford.
Title: Love, Literature and the Quantum Atom: Niels Bohr's 1913 Trilogy Revisited
Author: Heilbron, John L.,Aaserud, Finn
ISBN: 9780199680283
Binding:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: 2013-07-18
Number of Pages: 296
Weight: 0.7402 kg
Aaserud and Heilbron have given us a fine book, a handsome memento to this centenary year of Bohrs monumental work. * Graham Farmelo, THE *
Aaserud and Heilbron have given us a truly delightful book. It is high time that someone wrote his biography to bring his achievements to the attention of the public and to the many physicists who appear to be largely unaware of his intellectual breadth and depth, his huge influence and, above all, his nobility. Aaserud and Heilbron have convinced me that it is not only Niels Bohr who deserves a full-scale, accessible biography - his wife does, too. * Graham Farmelo, THE *
This is a unique contribution to the fanfare around the centenary of Bohr's theory: it incorporates archivist Finn Aaserud's assemblage of previously unpublished letters between Bohr and his family, and a reprint of Bohr's 'Trilogy' of papers. * Nature July 2013 *
The book is amply references and contains helpful black-and-white illustrations. Valuable for serious students of the early development of quantum physics. Recommended. * M. Dickinson, Choice, *
