Data de nascimento: 7. Outubro 1885
Data de falecimento: 18. Novembro 1962
Outros nomes: Нильс Бор
Niels Henrick David Bohr foi um físico dinamarquês cujos trabalhos contribuíram decisivamente para a compreensão da estrutura atômica e da física quântica.
Licenciou-se na sua cidade natal em 1911 e trabalhou com Joseph John Thomson e Ernest Rutherford na Inglaterra. Em 1913, aplicando a teoria da quantificação aos elétrons/electrões do modelo atômico de Rutherford, conseguiu interpretar algumas das propriedades das séries espectrais do hidrogênio e a estrutura do sistema periódico dos elementos. Formulou o princípio da correspondência e, em 1928, o da complementaridade. Estudou ainda o modelo nuclear da gota líquida, e antes da descoberta do plutónio, previu a propriedade da cisão, análoga à do U-235. Bohr recebeu o Nobel de Física em 1922.
A sua teoria para a explicação do modelo atômico proposto por Rutherford em 1911, levando em conta a teoria quântica , não foi levada a sério. Depois, no decorrer e depois da década de 1920, vários físicos ajudaram a criar o modelo existente hoje. Entre estes físicos podemos citar, dentre outros, Albert Einstein, Louis de Broglie, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg e Wolfgang Pauli.
— Niels Bohr
Disputadas, Stop telling God what to do
Niels Bohr citado em "Society" - página 146, Zelman Cowen (Sir.), William George Walker, Michael Donald Kirby - University of Queensland Press, 1986, ISBN 0702219975, 9780702219979
citação similar atribuida a Enrico Fermi
— Niels Bohr
Atribuídas, Frases Geniais - Página 247, Paulo Buchsbaum, Ediouro Publicações, 2004, ISBN 8500015330, 9788500015335, 440 páginas
— Niels Bohr
Disputadas, Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
citado in "Teaching and Learning Elementary Social Studies" (1970) de Arthur K. Ellis, p. 431
também atribuída a vários humoristas como o poeta dinamarques Piet Hein: "det er svært at spå - især om fremtiden"
como também atribuída ao cartunista dinarmaques Storm P (Robert Storm Petersen).
— Niels Bohr
Atribuídas, Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.
como citado em "A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations" (1991) por Alan L. Mackay, p. 35 35
— Niels Bohr
Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927), Context: I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.
— Niels Bohr
Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927), Context: In mathematics we can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as we choose. Religion, on the other hand, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our actions and thus, at least indirectly, our very existence. We cannot just look at them impassively from the outside. Moreover, our attitude to religious questions cannot be separated from our attitude to society. Even if religion arose as the spiritual structure of a particular human society, it is arguable whether it has remained the strongest social molding force through history, or whether society, once formed, develops new spiritual structures and adapts them to its particular level of knowledge. Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are beginning to become more fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously. For he, too, must be able to speak of life and death and the human condition to other members of the society in which he's chosen to live; he must educate his children according to the norms of that society, fit into its life. Epistemological sophistries cannot possibly help him attain these ends. Here, too, the relationship between critical thought about the spiritual content of a given religion and action based on the deliberate acceptance of that content is complementary. And such acceptance, if consciously arrived at, fills the individual with strength of purpose, helps him to overcome doubts and, if he has to suffer, provides him with the kind of solace that only a sense of being sheltered under an all-embracing roof can grant. In that sense, religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set.
— Niels Bohr
Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927), Context: I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.
— Niels Bohr
As quoted by Edward Teller, in Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession by Robert Coughlan, in LIFE magazine (6 September 1954), p. 62 http://books.google.de/books?id=I1QEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA62
Variant: An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
As quoted by Edward Teller (10 October 1972), and A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) by Alan L. Mackay, p. 35
