Niels Bohr

Hello! My name is Niels Bohr, and I am a scientist who loved to ask big questions about the smallest things in the universe. I was born in a lovely city called Copenhagen, in Denmark, on October 7th, 1885. My house was always full of interesting conversations because my father was a university professor. Along with my brother, Harald, I loved learning how things worked. We also loved playing soccer! From a very young age, I was fascinated by the world around me and was full of questions about the tiniest, invisible building blocks of everything.

When I grew older, I knew I had to keep learning. Around 1903, I went to the University of Copenhagen, just like my father. I chose to study physics, which is the science of matter and energy. I wanted to understand atoms, the tiny particles that make up everything you can see and touch. In 1911, after finishing my studies in Denmark, I decided to travel to England. I wanted to learn from some of the greatest scientists there, like J.J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford. They had already discovered parts of the atom, but there were still many puzzles left to solve, and I was eager to help figure them out.

Working with Ernest Rutherford gave me a brilliant idea. He had a theory that atoms had a tiny center, which he called a nucleus, with even tinier particles called electrons zooming around it. But his idea had a problem: why didn't the electrons just crash into the center? It was a mystery. In 1913, I proposed a new model to explain it. I imagined that electrons moved in special paths, or orbits, around the nucleus, a bit like planets orbiting the sun. They could jump from one path to another, but they couldn't exist in the space in between. This idea, which became known as the Bohr Model, helped explain how atoms work and why they sometimes give off light.

After my exciting time in England, I returned home to Denmark. I had a big dream. I wanted to create a place where scientists from all over the world could come together to share ideas and work on new discoveries. So, in 1921, I started a special school in Copenhagen and called it the Institute of Theoretical Physics. It quickly became a lively hub for brilliant minds to meet and talk about science. The very next year, in 1922, I received a huge honor for my work on the atom: the Nobel Prize in Physics! I was so proud that my ideas were helping everyone understand the universe a little better.

Later in my life, a terrible conflict called World War II began. My country, Denmark, was in danger. Because my mother was Jewish, my family and I were in danger, too. In 1943, we had to secretly escape to Sweden and then travel to America to be safe. During this difficult time, I worked with other scientists, but I always spoke about the importance of using science peacefully. I believed that countries should work together and share their knowledge for the good of all people, not to cause harm.

I lived to be 77 years old, passing away back in my beloved Copenhagen in 1962. My work gave scientists a whole new way to think about the tiny, invisible world of atoms. The model I created was a stepping stone that led to even more amazing discoveries in science and technology. The institute I founded is still a famous place for physics today, and I am happy that my endless curiosity helped light the way for future generations of thinkers and dreamers.