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Conference proceedings :
‘The Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen: Holdings,
Users, Activities’
by Felicity Pors, Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, Denmark
I
am from the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, where there is a staff of three.
The others are Lis Rasmussen, librarian/secretary, and the director Finn
Aaserud, presently lecturing in the U.S. He sends best wishes to his many
friends here. My background is IT and
language, and I am very pleased to be here in Edinburgh where I obtained my
degree in mathematical science many years ago.
I
will start by briefly describing the Niels Bohr Archive, the holdings and
current activities. There will also be a short description of plans concerning
digitisation of some of the collections.
The Niels Bohr Archive is housed at the Niels Bohr Institute, the
physics institute of the University of Copenhagen, in the villa where Niels
Bohr and his family lived from 1926 –1932. The Archive has offices on the top
floor, I work in what originally was the Bohr children’s nursery. The Archive
library is at the top of the old high-tension hall, and the collections are
held in the basement.
Niels
Bohr Institute, c. 1940 (Archive in the house on the right)
The
Niels Bohr Archive (NBA) holds primary material for the history of modern
physics, pertaining in particular to the early development of quantum mechanics
and the life and career of Niels Bohr (1885-1962). Although the NBA has existed
since shortly after Bohr's death in 1962, its future was only secured at the
centennial of Bohr's birth in 1985, when a deed of gift from Bohr’s wife,
Margrethe, provided the opportunity to establish the NBA as an independent
not-for-profit institution. Since 1985, the NBA has had its own board of
directors and has received a fixed annual sum for running expenses, presently
from the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation; the NBA has
also made ample use of its privilege to apply for project support from private
sources.
The
core of the collections comprises Bohr's scientific correspondence (6000
letters and drafts) and manuscripts (500 units). This material was catalogued
and microfilmed in the early 1960s as part of the Archive for History of
Quantum Physics (AHQP), a project sponsored by the American Philosophical
Society and the American Physical Society. The outcome was 290 microfilms of
various relevant historical material, which have been placed in several
repositories world-wide, including the NBA. Quite often the younger generations
of history of science researchers seem to be unaware of the availability of the
AHQP worldwide. It can also be noted that these microfilms, now 40 years old,
show no signs of age. This is one of
the records on microfilm:
The
‘Rutherford Memorandum’, Bohr to Rutherford 1912
The
major collections of the Niels Bohr Archive not on microfilm are:
·
Bohr
Scientific Correspondence, Supplement
·
Manuscripts,
other authors
·
Bohr
General Correspondence
·
Bohr
Private Correspondence
·
Bohr
Political Correspondence
·
Harald
Bohr Correspondence
·
Bohr
Newspaper Clippings
·
Sound
recordings of Niels Bohr lectures and interviews
·
Niels
Bohr Film Collection
In
addition, the NBA houses several historical collections that cannot be
consulted elsewhere. Thus, in 1985 the Bohr family donated the bulk of Bohr's
private correspondence, which includes letters to and from central
personalities in culture and politics inside and outside Denmark. The equally
extensive ‘Bohr General Correspondence’ documents Bohr's substantial
administrative involvement. The Political Correspondence was made available in
1999.
NBA also has collections of material
originating from other physicists. Scientific Correspondence and Papers of:
·
George
Hevesy (1885-1966)
·
Léon
Rosenfeld (1904-1974)
·
Aage Bohr (1922- )
·
Oskar Klein (1894-1977)
·
Hans Anton Kramers (1894-1952)
·
Allan
R. Mackintosh (1936-1995)
·
Christian
Møller (1904-1980)
·
Bernard
Peters (1910-1993)
·
Stefan
Rozental (1903-1994)
Among
papers of Bohr’s closest colleagues deposited in the NBA, only the Scientific
Correspondence of George Hevesy and H.A. Kramers has been microfilmed, but the
papers of among others Léon Rosenfeld, Christian Møller and Oskar Klein are also of great historical
interest and frequently referred to.
Some
papers of more recent origin - notably those of Aage Bohr, Niels Bohr's son,
and of solid-state physicist Allan Mackintosh have also been deposited. These
collections have been organised and described with the help of a grant from the
American Institute of Physics (AIP). A more complete list as well as
descriptions of the collections are to be found on the NBA website. (www.nba.nbi.dk).
The web also shows a catalogue of the large collection of photographs relating
to Bohr's career, this collection is an especially popular resource. The NBA
library catalogue is also accessible from the website.
The
Archive makes the collections available to users, accommodating requests for
information and material.
The
NBA continues the publication - through Elsevier - of the Niels Bohr Collected
Works, the first volume of which appeared in 1972. Volume 11 (edited by Finn
Aaserud and the only one remaining) will cover Bohr's activities outside
science and philosophy, prominently including some of Bohr's previously
unpublished writings on his idea of an ‘open world’, developed during and after
World War II.
Since
1999, the NBA increased its special activities aimed at disseminating natural
science for the public, particularly gymnasium (high-school) students. This is
done in collaboration with the staff of the NB Institute who give introductions
to physics topics and demonstrations of practical work in the basement labs as
a supplement to the science history talks and tours of the Institute supplied
by the NBA. The guided tour includes a visit to Niels Bohr’s office which
remains more or less as it was in 1962 and to the original Auditorium A.
Niels Bohr’s office,
NBI, Copenhagen
Auditorium A as in 1929 at the first
Copenhagen Conference
The
NBA also has an ongoing History of Science Seminar where prominent scholars from
far and near are invited to talk about their work, either when they are close
enough to Copenhagen so that we can afford to pay their ticket or when they are
visiting the Archive anyway in order to conduct research in our collections.
These talks although held at irregular intervals have made the Archive more
well-known in Danish circles as well as strengthening relations with the
international history of science community. Recent speakers have been Ruth Sime
who talked about Lise Meitner and Graham Farmelo, whose topic was P.A.M. Dirac.
Recent activities at
the NBA
The
play Copenhagen by Michael Frayn has directed much interest towards the NBA. In
2002 the NBA organised the release of Bohr's notes and drafts pertaining to
Werner Heisenberg's visit to Copenhagen in September 1941. The documents were
presented in February 2002 on the NBA website (www.nba.nbi.dk)
and as a special edition of the journal Naturens Verden.
