Niels Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. His father was a physiology professor and his mother’s family had links to banking and politics. The Bohrs were well educated in the arts, literature and science — and were interested in sports. Niels and his brother, Harald, were footballers. Harald (later a mathematics professor) played for Denmark in the 1908 Olympics.
In 1903 Niels joined the University of Copenhagen where he studied mathematics and physics, leading to a doctoral thesis on the electron theory of metals in 1911. In 1912 he travelled to England. Initially he went to the University of Cambridge to study with J. J. Thomson, and then to the University of Manchester to work with Ernest Rutherford (Who were they?, PHYSICS REVIEW Vol. 26, No. 1, p. 19). Bohr enjoyed deep theoretical discussions with Rutherford, whose work on atomic structure had superseded Thomson’s ‘plum pudding’ model.
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