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Niels Bohr på film

Niels Bohr on Film

Niels Bohr er den danske videnskabsmand, som med sin atomteori fra 1913 og videre forskning har ændret verden mest radikalt. Han modtog Nobelprisen i fysik i 1922. Vi har digitaliseret alt, hvad arkivet indeholder af film med og om Niels Bohr.
Danish scientist Niels Bohr changed the world in the most radical way with his atomic theory from 1913 and subsequent research. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. The Danish Film Institute has digitalised everything in our archive featuring Bohr.
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Af Lars-Martin Sørensen, forskningsleder og Lisbeth Richter Larsen, redaktør, Det Danske Filminstitut

Niels Bohr var atomforsker, en filosofisk anlagt én af slagsen, og familiefar. Han var verdenskendt i sin samtid, vært for et utal af internationale kongresser og gæst ved lige så mange verden over. Han blev fejret på sine runde fødselsdage i Carlsbergs æresbolig, hvor han boede, og så var han en kendis og kulturpersonlighed, der blev inviteret til alskens officielle arrangementer.

Denne filmsamling favner hele Niels Bohrs liv med regulære portrætfilm, små reportager og nogle lidt skramlede private optagelser. De tre undervisningsfilm om kvantefysik bidrager med en levende og visuel formidling af et meget svært tilgængeligt stof – og det er lige præcis dét, filmmediet kan!

Læs resten af artiklen under filmserien

Niels Bohr på film

Virkelighedens mindste byggesten

Nogle af de mest banebrydende naturvidenskabelige opdagelser blev gjort af verdens førende atomforskere, som Max Planck og Albert Einstein, i første halvdel af det 20’ende århundrede. Helt fremme blandt dem var Niels Bohr, som havde sat sig for at forstå og beskrive atomets opbygning. En opgave med et svimlende perspektiv, fordi hele den fysiske virkelighed, der omgiver os, består af atomer. At kende atomets opbygning er derfor at gøre sig til hersker over naturens store kræfter, som Bohr formulerede det. 

Det er en velafprøvet videnskabelig metode at skille tingene ad i deres mindste bestanddele, når man vil begribe noget. Men hvordan skiller man noget ad, som ikke kan ses, noget så småt, at selv det kraftigste mikroskop er blindt? Et knappenålshoved består af mindst 100 trillioner atomer. Valser man knappenålshovedet ud til samme tykkelse som et atom, vil det kunne nå 600 gange rundt om Jorden. Det forklarer Børge Høst i sin film om moderne atomforskning, En ny virkelighed, der er tilegnet Niels Bohr. 

At tænke højt og tale sammen

I Ole Johns portrætfilm Niels Bohr (1985) hæfter flere af Bohrs tidligere kolleger sig ved den frie, legende og nærmest spøgefulde atmosfære, der herskede blandt unge forskere fra hele verden på Institut for teoretisk Fysik – siden 1965 ’Niels Bohr Institutet’ – under Bohrs ledelse. Han udvalgte sig typisk en yngre kollega, som så var hans samtalepartner gennem en hel dag. En af samtalerne fortsatte en aften, hvor Bohr forfulgte en tanke helt ind i den sporvogn, der skulle køre ham hjem til æresboligen på Carlsberg. Hans samtalepartner skulle ikke med sporvognen, men Bohrs tale fortsatte uanfægtet af sporvognens køreplan og hans yngre kollega, som stod på gaden ved stoppestedet. Og hvad gjorde sporvognsføreren? Han ventede pænt med at sætte vognen i gang, til den store forsker havde fulgt sin tanke til dørs og afrundet samtalen. 

Måske udsprang den flydende talestrøm af, at Bohr i sin søgen efter erkendelse erfarede, at sproget ikke slog til. Han kæmpede ikke kun med at begribe det nye forskningsfelt med tankens kraft, men også med at finde ord, der kunne indfange det, som ingen havde beskrevet før ham. Man mærker Bohrs tumlen med sproget i Jens Henriksens helt særegne film Niels Bohr (1952), hvor han i en længere enetale gør status over sit liv og forskning. Her taler han med en blid, afdæmpet, næsten melankolsk stemmeføring direkte til kameraet i lange, lidt vævende sætninger, som var han konstant på jagt efter de helt præcise formuleringer. 

Bohrs dilemma

Ud over at fortælle om Bohrs store videnskabelige landvindinger fremstiller filmene også dilemmaer og modsætninger i Bohrs person, liv og forskning: en stor mand med en yderst beskeden, nærmest ydmyg fremtoning, der år ud og år ind lidenskabeligt forfølger tanker og erkendelser til store resultater; en legende og uformel leder af et forskningsmiljø, hvis omdrejningspunkt er karakteriseret ved den største alvor – uden Bohrs forskning, ingen atombombe, som han brugte halvdelen af sit liv på at forhindre brugen af. Han stod fadder til komplementaritetsprincippet, som består i, at man i visse sammenhænge må forlige sig med to indbyrdes modstridende forklaringer på et og samme fænomen for at opnå en dækkende beskrivelse. 

Alle disse modsætninger var indlejret i Bohrs videnskabelige og filosofiske tænkning, hvilket han så smukt lagde frem ved at vælge yin & yang – de komplementære modsætninger i perfekt harmoni – som symbol på sit våbenskjold. 
 


Lars-Martin Sørensen og Lisbeth Richter Larsen | 06. oktober 2022

Written by Lars-Martin Sørensen, Head of Research Unit and Lisbeth Richter Larsen, Editor, The Danish Film Institute

Niels Bohr was an atomic scientist, philosophically minded and one of a kind, as well as a family man. He was world-renowned in his time, hosted countless international congresses, and was a frequent guest at just as many around the world. His milestone birthdays were celebrated in Carlsberg’s honorary residence where he lived, and he was also a celebrity and a cultural figure who was invited to all sorts of official events.

This film collection encompasses Bohr’s entire life with regular portrait films, small reports, and some slightly shabby private footage. The three educational films about quantum physics offer a vivid and visual presentation of concepts which are quite hard to understand, which is exactly what the film medium can do.

Read the rest of the article below the videos

The smallest building blocks of existence

Some of the most groundbreaking scientific discoveries were made in the first half of the 20th century by the world’s leading nuclear scientists such as Max Planck and Albert Einstein. Among those who spearheaded nuclear science was Niels Bohr, who had set out to understand and describe the structure of the atom. This was a task of staggering importance, because the entire physical existence which surrounds us consists of atoms. That is why “to know the structure of the atom is to master the great forces of nature”, as Bohr formulated it. 

Disassembling things into their smallest components when you want to understand something is a well-tested scientific method. But how do you disassemble something that can’t be seen, something so small that even the most powerful microscope seems to be a dud? A pinhead consists of at least 100 trillion atoms. If you were to roll out the head of a pin to the same the thickness as an atom, it would reach around the globe 600 times. Børge Høst explains this in his film about modern atomic research, A New Reality – Niels Bohr and the Atomic Age (1963 - in Danish only), dedicated to Niels Bohr. 

Thinking aloud and discussing together

In Ole John’s portrait film Niels Bohr (1985), several of Bohr’s former colleagues hang out in the free, playful and almost jokey atmosphere which prevailed among young researchers from all over the world at the Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Copenhagen – since 1965 known as The Niels Bohr Institute under Bohr’s leadership. He typically chose a younger colleague to be his interlocutor for the day. One of the conversations continued into the evening, when Bohr pursued a thought all the way to the tram that was supposed to take him home to his honorary residence at Carlsberg. His interlocutor wasn’t going to take the tram, but Bohr’s talk continued regardless of the tram’s timetable or of his younger colleague, who was standing in the street at the stop. And what did the tram driver do? He politely waited to leave the stop until the great researcher had followed his thought through and rounded off the conversation before boarding. 

Perhaps the fluidity of his speech arose from the fact that Bohr, in his search for knowledge, learned that language didn’t really work. Not only did he struggle to grasp the new field of research using the power of thought, he also struggled to find words which could capture what no one had described before him. You can sense Bohr’s tinkering with language in Jens Henriksen’s unique film Niels Bohr (1952 - in Danish only), where he takes stock of his life and research in a long soliloquy. Here he speaks with a gentle, subdued, almost melancholic voice directly to the camera in long, slightly woven sentences, as if he were constantly searching for the exact wording. 

Bohr’s dilemma

In addition to telling the story of Bohr’s great scientific achievements, the films also present dilemmas and contradictions within his personality, life and research. Bohr was a great man with an extremely modest, almost humble appearance, who year after year passionately pursued his thoughts and realisations to achieve great results. He was a playful and informal leader of a research environment whose focal point is characterised by the utmost seriousness – and without Bohr’s research there would have been no atomic bomb, the use of which he spent half of his life fighting to prevent. He advocated the principle of complementarity, which is based on the fact, that in certain contexts one has to come to terms with two mutually contradictory explanations for one and the same phenomenon in order to achieve a comprehensive description. 

All these opposites were embedded in Bohr’s scientific and philosophical thinking, which he so beautifully displayed by choosing Yin & Yang – the complementary opposites in perfect harmony – as the symbol of his coat of arms.


Lars-Martin Sørensen and Lisbeth Richter Larsen | 06. oktober 2022