Aage Bohr
(Lived 1922 – 2009)
Aage Bohr was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 for his work detailing the structure of the atomic nucleus.
Early Life and Education
Aage Niels Bohr was born in Denmark’s capital city, Copenhagen, on June 19, 1922.
In the same year as Aage was born, his father, Niels Bohr, was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the structure
of atoms and the radiation emitted by them.
Aage’s mother, Margrethe Nørlund, gave birth to six children – all
boys; Aage was the fourth. Margrethe was well educated; she assisted
Niels Bohr with his paperwork and discussed his scientific research with
him in detail.
Aage Bohr’s education was both conventional and, from a scientific
point of view, extraordinarily privileged. Like many other students of
high school age in Copenhagen, he attended grammar school – the Sortedam
Gymnasium. Unlike other students, he also enjoyed
conversations with some of the world’s most outstanding physicists,
including his father, of course.
In later life Aage recalled some of the giants of science who had
worked in Copenhagen with his father; he met them so regularly that they
became his ‘uncles’ – including Uncle Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize in
Physics 1932) and Uncle Wolfgang Pauli (Nobel Prize in Physics 1945).
