Niels Bohr meeting Niels Bohr and the 20th century
The international "Niels Bohr and the Bohr medals Evolution of Physics in the 20th Century" At the "Niels Bohr and the Evolution of Physics in the 20th Century" meeting, four meeting earlier this year provided the distinguished scientists were awarded Niels opportunity to reassess the evolutional Bohr-UNESCO gold medals for their important achievements in basic science impact of Bohr's "Lebenswerk". and their efforts to shorten the bridge between science and society: S Chandra- sekhar of the Centre for Liquid Crystal Niels Bohr (1885-1962) did not coincide entirely with the 20th cen Research, Bangalore, India; Vitaly Ginzburg tury, but was nevertheless one of its great motive powers.The meet of Moscow's P.N. Lebedev Institute; Walter ing, organized by the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, brought Kohn of the University of California, Sanata Barbara; and together about 200 eminent physicists at UNESCO's headquarters Alexander Polyakov of Princeton (pictured). in Paris from 27-29 May to consider his scientific legacy. After presenting the wide variety of Bohr's seminal ideas and par at the dawn of the century, supports a complex of frontier projects. adigms, speakers turned to the present vitality of these concepts at This encompasses not only the spectacular "big science" effort as the frontiers of modern physics, emphasizing also the growing sym exemplified by the Hubble Space Telescope, CERN's LHC proton col bioses between physics and biology, and between physics and lider, or Japan's Superkamiokande underground detector, but also the information theory. international communities pushing the underlying theoretical under The opening talks on Bohr, by biographer Abraham Pais and by standing beyond the standard models of their respective disciplines. Ove Nathan of the Niels Bohr Institute, recalled the deep involve ment of science with the everlasting challenge to express ourselves Small science in a way which is both philosophically correct and reflects profound And there is modern table-top science - "small is beautiful" - split personal integrity. ting photon states for quantum teleportation, fixing single atoms in Examples are the contest early this century between Bohr and nano-Kelvin states to measure time to an accuracy of 10"19 (to Einstein on the interpretation and understanding of the quantum check the time variation of Nature's "constants"), developing DNA mechanical concepts of measurement and evidence; and the sub strains to catalyse organic manufacture of photomasks for quan sequent contests between Bohr and, in turn, Roosevelt, Churchill tum-level semiconductor chips, and synthetic muscular mini- (who suggested keeping Bohr under house arrest), and later the UN, machines built from multi-polymeric "soft matter" complexes. in the struggle to prevent world politics degenerating into an atomic These specialist subjects are vibrant with excitement, both for the arms race. Both of these avenues of confrontation remain strikingly open horizon of learning about the universe of Nature, and the tran topical, as reflected in the talk by Anton Zeilinger on modern quan sition from an initial qualitative to a precision quantitative under tum information theory, and in the parallel news of the spread of standing of the quantum world, inorganic and organic. nuclear arms in the East. Astrophysics left a particularly strong impression, with new results Turning to the present frontiers from Hubble on the dark matter problem (Martin Rees), and with of science first embraced by Bohr Superkamiokande's tentative evidence for neutrino oscillations (John and other monumental personal Bahcall) giving the first hints of physics beyond the Standard Model. ities of the 1920s, the younger The symposium was a memorable experience for participants, contemporary observer must feel achieving its basic but ambitious objective of surveying the evolution more comfortable with the devel of phyics this century. It was in some ways a modern revival of the opment of a much wider physics dramatic meetings held at the beginning of the century, such as the community historic 1911 Solvay Conference, but with a small number of insular Here an enormous interper scientific luminaries replaced by a host of enthusiastic heirs. sonal web of co-operation and Notably absent were the prophets of doom, predicting the immi exchange of ideas and resources, Distinguished physicist, nent end of science. Regrettably, as the symposium would have con aided by public revenue support author and Bohr biographer vinced them otherwise. still driven by the evolutionary Abraham Pais spoke on "Niels spirit of the scientific revolution Bohr, man and physicist". Reinhard Stock, Frankfurt.
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