1885-1962

Danish Physicist

Niels Bohr was the first to apply quantum theory in a consistent model to explain the arrangement of electrons in the atom. Bohr's model accounted for the chemical properties of the elements and for the main features in their spectra. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this achievement in 1922.

Bohr was born in Copenhagen on October 7, 1885. After receiving his doctorate from the University of Copenhagen in 1911, he continued his education at Cambridge University under J.J. Thomson (1856-1940), the discoverer of the electron. Next he spent a year at the University of Manchester, working with Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) just as the British physicist was discovering the atomic nucleus.

While the importance of Rutherford's work was enormous, there were a few major problems with his model of negatively charged electrons orbiting a positively charged nucleus. According to...