Quantum_ Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality - Manjit Kumar [50]
Bohr abandoned his usual practice of drafting letters even to his brother. 'I am not getting along badly at the moment,' Bohr reassured Harald, 'a couple of days ago I had a little idea with regard to understanding the absorption of alpha-rays (it happened in this way: a young mathematician here, C.G. Darwin (grandson of the real Darwin), has just published a theory about this problem, and I felt that it not only wasn't quite right mathematically (however, only slightly wrong) but very unsatisfactory in the basic conception, and I have worked out a little theory about it, which, even if it isn't much, perhaps may throw some light on certain things connected with the structure of atoms). I am planning to publish a little paper about it very soon.'83 Not having to go to the laboratory 'has been wonderfully convenient for working out my little theory', he admitted.84
Until he had put flesh onto the bare bones of his emerging ideas, the only person in Manchester whom Bohr was willing to confide in was Rutherford. Though surprised by the direction the Dane had taken, Rutherford listened and this time encouraged him to continue. With his approval, Bohr stopped going to the laboratory. He was under pressure, since his time in Manchester was almost up. 'I believe I have found out a few things; but it is certainly taking more time to work them out than I was foolish enough to believe at first', he wrote to Harald on 17 July, a month after first sharing his secret. 'I hope to have a little paper ready to show Rutherford before I leave, so I'm busy, so busy; but the unbelievable heat here in Manchester doesn't exactly help my diligence. How I look forward to talking to you!'85 He wanted to tell his brother that he hoped to fix Rutherford's flawed nuclear atom by turning it into the quantum atom.
Chapter 4
THE QUANTUM ATOM
Slagelse, Denmark, Thursday, 1 August 1912. The cobbled streets of the small, picturesque town some 50 miles south-west of Copenhagen were decked out in flags. Yet it was not in the beautiful medieval church, but in the civic hall that Niels Bohr and Margrethe Nørland were married in a two-minute ceremony conducted by the chief of police. The mayor was away on holiday, Harald was best man, and only close family were present. Like his parents before him, Bohr did not want a religious ceremony. He had stopped believing in God as a teenager, when he had confessed to his father: 'I cannot understand how I could be so taken in by all this; it means nothing whatsoever to me.'1 Had he lived, Christian Bohr would have approved when, a few months before the wedding, his son formally resigned from the Lutheran Church.
Originally intending to spend their honeymoon in Norway, the couple were forced to change their plans as Bohr failed to finish a paper on alpha particles in time. Instead the newlyweds travelled to Cambridge for a two-week stay during their month-long honeymoon.2 In between visits to old friends and showing Margrethe around Cambridge, Bohr completed his paper. It was a joint effort. Niels dictated, always struggling for the right word to make his meaning clear, while Margrethe corrected and improved his English. They worked so well together that for the next few years Margrethe effectively became his secretary.
Bohr disliked writing and avoided doing so whenever he could. He was able to complete his doctoral thesis only by dictating it to his mother. 'You mustn't help Niels so much, you must let him learn to write himself', his father had urged, to no avail.3 When he did put pen to paper, Bohr wrote slowly and in an almost indecipherable scrawl. 'First and foremost,' recalled a colleague, 'he found it difficult to think and write at the same time.'4 He needed to talk, to think aloud as he developed his ideas. He thought best while on the move, usually circling a table. Later, an assistant, or anyone