Chapter 3 "Tvi" Summary

Ernest Rutherford meets Niels Bohr, a muscular, athletic Dane, whose contributions to Twentieth Century physics rank second only to Albert Einstein's. The brilliant Bohr is always anxious and full of sell-doubts. He tries mathematics, experimental physics, and physiology. His first scientific paper is published before he receives his Master's Degree and determines the surface tension of water. Bohr receives his Ph.D. in 1911, becomes engaged to Margrethe Norland, the sister of a friend, and starts work at Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. Rutherford, working at Manchester, speaks at Cavendish and recruits Bohr for research in radioactivity in Manchester. Bohr becomes friends with the young Hungarian radio-chemist, George de Hevesy.

Bohr learns radiochemistry from de Hevesy and realizes that the chemical properties of elements depend on the number and distribution of electrons in their atoms. He sets out the order of...