Niels Bohr

Niels Henrik David Bohr (October 7, 1885 – November 18, 1962) was a Danish physicist who made essential contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics.

Bohr's contributions to physics

• Bohr's model of atomic structure.
• The electron's orbital angular momentum is quantized; L=n?.
• The theory that electrons travel in discrete orbits around the atom's nucleus, with the chemical properties of the element being largely determined by the number of electrons in the outer orbits.
• The idea that an electron could drop from a higher-energy orbit to a lower one, emitting a photon (light quantum) of discrete energy (this became the basis for quantum theory).
• The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
• The principle of complementarity: that items could be separately analyzed as having several contradictory properties.

He received the Nobel Prize for Physics for this work in 1922.

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