Finn Aaserud - Böcker

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 Our book presents unpublished excerpts from extensive correspondence between Bohr and his immediate family, and uses it to describe and analyze the psychological and cultural background to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.

Niels Bohr: Collected Works, Volume 13: Cumulative Subject Index documents aspects of Niels Bohr's varied life and work in the form of a cumulative subject index, with emphasis on his scientific contributions in the field of physics. The general organization of the material is thematic rather than strictly chronological, allowing for the presentation of each paper (or group of papers) along with other relevant material such as drafts, notes, letters, and other items. The book is illustrated with rare photos and includes explanatory notes as well as a bibliography.

The bibliography is restricted to the versions of Bohr's publications reproduced in this volume and encompasses a wide range of topics in physics, from the determination of the surface tension of water by the method of jet vibration to the electron theory of metals and of thermoelectric phenomena; the theory of the decrease of velocity of moving electrified particles on passing through matter; the constitution of atoms and molecules; and the spectra of helium and hydrogen. Bohr's other papers focus on the effect of electric and magnetic fields on spectral lines; the quantum theory of radiation and the structure of the atom; the polarization of radiation in the quantum theory; and collisions between atomic systems and free electrical particles.

This monograph will be useful to students, practitioners, and researchers interested in Bohr's life and work in general and in quantum mechanics in particular.

An important study for understanding the complex interconnections between basic science and its sources of economic support in the period between the two world wars. The focus of the study is on the Institute for Theoretical Physics (later renamed the Niels Bohr Institute) at Copenhagen University, and the role of its director, the eminent Danish physicist Niels Bohr, in the funding and administration of the Institute. Under Bohr's direction, the Copenhagen Institute was a central workplace in the development and formulation of quantum mechanics in the 1920s and later became an important centre for nuclear research in the 1930s. In his book, Dr Aaserud brings together the scholarship on the internal origins and development of nuclear physics in the 1930s with descriptions of the concurrent changes in private support for international basic science, particularly as represented by Rockefeller Foundation philanthropy. In the process, the book places the emergence of nuclear physics in a larger historical context.

An important study for understanding the complex interconnections between basic science and its sources of economic support in the period between the two world wars. The focus of the study is on the Institute for Theoretical Physics (later renamed the Niels Bohr Institute) at Copenhagen University, and the role of its director, the eminent Danish physicist Niels Bohr, in the funding and administration of the Institute. Under Bohr's direction, the Copenhagen Institute was a central workplace in the development and formulation of quantum mechanics in the 1920s and later became an important centre for nuclear research in the 1930s. In his book, Dr Aaserud brings together the scholarship on the internal origins and development of nuclear physics in the 1930s with descriptions of the concurrent changes in private support for international basic science, particularly as represented by Rockefeller Foundation philanthropy. In the process, the book places the emergence of nuclear physics in a larger historical context.

To all four of us, Carsten was the best possible friend and colleague. To Finn, he was a fellow student in the history of science for several years at the Niels Bohr Institute; to Relge, he was a welcome resource for personal and intellectual interac­ tion in an otherwise less than fertile environment for the history of science; Roger was Carsten's friend and advisor, not least in the development of the dissertation on which the present book is based; and as director of the Niels Bohr Archive, Erik was his main advisor in his historical work. Because he was the person closest to Carsten's work on his Ph. D. dissertation on the history of beta decay, on which the present book is based, it is only fitting that Erik stands as single author of the words in Carsten's memory at the very beginning of this book. Before his untimely death shortly after the completion of the Ph. D. disser­ tation, Carsten had himself plans to develop the dissertation into a book. Being a true perfectionist, he wanted to rework the manuscript substantively, especially with regard to relating it to the broader discussion among historians of science.