Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr
This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Today's featured article/requests. 
 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the TFAR nomination of the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page unless you are renominating the article at TFAR. For renominations, please add   to the top of the discussion and   at the bottom, then complete a new TFAR nom underneath.

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/November 28, 2013 by BencherliteTalk 13:26, 5 November 2013 (UTC)



Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who created the Bohr model, the first widely accepted model of atomic structure. A central figure of 20th century physics, he received the Nobel prize in 1922. In three articles published in 1913, the third in November, he applied old quantum theory to restrict the revolving electrons to stable orbits, creating the Bohr model of the atom. A dozen years later, faced with the opposing particle and wave interpretations of atomic phenomena in the new quantum mechanics, he proposed the complementarity principle of using both interpretations to fully explain the results. He founded the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, now known as the Niels Bohr Institute, and predicted the existence of a new element, which was named hafnium after the Latin name for Copenhagen. Later, the element bohrium was named after him. During the 1930s, he helped refugees from Nazism. In September 1943, after receiving word of his impending arrest by the Germans, he fled to Sweden. Flown next to Britain, he joined the British Tube Alloys nuclear weapons project, and later the Manhattan Project. After the war, Bohr was involved with the establishment of CERN.
 * 4 points: Vital article. 2013 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Trinity. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:53, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, 5 points, no physicists on the main page in more than 3 months (Jürgen Ehlers, 28th June). BencherliteTalk 16:39, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support. Fascinating history, quite educational, very high quality article. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 03:27, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:36, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support per Cirt, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:43, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support: 2013, and especially November 2013, is the 100th anniversary of Niels Bohr's celebrated trilogy of papers which laid the foundations of the modern theory of atomic structure. Although, the Bohr model has been superseded, it is the one that has come to represent atomic structure both in the popular imagination and in the various crests and emblems employed by scientific organizations, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has a modified Bohr model nestled in two olive branches.  Freud had once said about his ideas on the interpretations of dreams, "Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once in a lifetime." To, this I would add, "sometimes it is not just once in the creator's lifetime, but also among a handful of times in the lifetime of a generation." The applies to Bohr's trilogy.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  13:55, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * PS Shouldn't a centennial be 6 points (the first multiple :) )? Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  13:55, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * It would be, but the six points is only for a specific date. There is no objection to another November date. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:32, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I had another question, which I left on your talk page, but the answer to which I just figured out. It concerned the blurb.  I see that the blurb is different from the first few lines of the lead, so not subject to constant change.  I think the first sentence in the blurb doesn't serve Bohr well.  Bohr wasn't just someone who made contributions to atomic structure (Sommerfeld did too), wasn't just someone who received the Nobel prize (his son did too), he was a major figure of the early 20th century revolution in physics.  We need to say that in the first sentence, not as a lure to reel people in, but as an accurate description of the scale of his achievement.  The Nobel prize really, in some respects, is irrelevant.  He would have been just has big without it.  Also, for a small blurb, there is too much space devoted to the WWII bit.  In Pais's biography, majorly used in the article, a scant 40 pages (470 to 510, and even those not entirely) out of a total of 540 are devoted to the war years.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:34, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * More importantly, my main question here is: can anyone tweak the blurb; if not, i.e. if only the nominator can, how long can he tweak it before the actual date, November 28?  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:34, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Anyone can work on the blurb, though if you are contemplating major changes, it's as well to do it asap, and certainly before Bencherlite schedules it, so that others can review the new version. As someone without post-school education in physics, I found the blurb interesting, as I knew his main contributions already, but didn't know anything about his work on nuclear weapons or in the establishment of CERN. Espresso Addict (talk) 16:55, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. Your remark about not being aware of his other contributions makes a very valid point.  I'll keep it in mind.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:11, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I usually regard my proposed blurbs as a first cut. It is rare when another editor doesn't have a go. I find them even tougher to write than the introductions, because you've just written a large article on a subject, and now have to jam it into 1,200 characters. Bear in mind that WWII is a more popular subject than physics. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:20, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I've just tweaked the blurb. I'm assuming there is a world limit.  What is it?  I left the Heisenberg bit out.  It seems random, in my view.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  21:47, 29 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Support. Comprehensible and engaging article on a key physicist. Is there a reason for going for the 28th rather than the 21st, which the legacy section in the article mentions? Espresso Addict (talk) 00:05, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I had suggested the 28 (Thanksgiving in the US) because it would give us more time to improve the article which has just been FA'd, and give us something to be thankful for. I'm not sure about the 21 November date.  It is the date on which both Denmark and Greenland issued postage stamps marking 50 years of atomic theory.  Journals, however, typically don't have a date in the month on which they are officially published.  The 21 November date might have been chosen by the Danish post office for reasons of convenience, availability etc.  In any case, the Golden Jubilee conference at the Bohr Institute in Copenhagen was held from 8–15 July 1963.  July was the month in which the first paper of the trilogy was published.  So, the 21st certainly wasn't the fixed monthly date of publication of the journal Philosophical Magazine, in which all three papers were published.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:11, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Most modern journals do have a specific cover date, but I've checked and the issue in question doesn't seem to. Thanksgiving seems to me, as a Brit, an odd date to put it on -- people tend not to read Wikipedia on holidays. Espresso Addict (talk) 16:55, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm Having written a few papers and having just checked over a dozen journals in my office, where I currently am, I'm not sure about the cover dates, but maybe they do in some fields (or unless you are talking about the internet versions).  In my fields of interest, some of which border on physics, they have the month and year of publication, and, of course, volume and issue, but no exact date (other than the one on which the final version of the manuscript was received from the author, which in Bohr's case was sometime in July 1913.)  I'm not wedded to Thanksgiving, and wasn't aware that people don't read WP on holidays; So as long as it is later in the month, it will be fine by me.  The 21st is fine too.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:25, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * PS I did check for any significance of the date 21 November 1913 in Bohr's life. The only (repeated) reference I find is to a letter Bohr wrote to the experimental physicist Moseley on that date, which is memorable for the surprising words, "For the moment I have stopped speculating on the atom."  Whether or not that was because he felt drained after having received word that the third paper had just been published&mdash;drained in the way that some mountaineers feel on their way down from the summit&mdash;I have no idea.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:25, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course, it's only Thanksgiving in one country, as I understand it - the rest of the world carries on as normal... BencherliteTalk 20:31, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * ...but if you want to educate Americans on a European scientist... Espresso Addict (talk) 20:57, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Bohr certainly didn't stop speculating about the structure of the atom, as the article attests. Moseley on the other hand, was killed at Gallipoli on 10 August 1915. Again, I have no objection to yielding the article date if someone wants it for a Thanksgiving related article, but I had my heart set on a November date. July would have been better, but I couldn't get the article ready by then. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:20, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I asked my better half about Thanksgiving. She said, "Most people will be distracted before dinner and comatose after." In spite of this expert opinion, from my perspective, any date in the second half of November is good, including Thanksgiving.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  21:47, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If it where an article where I was trying to drum up interest in the subject, then I would shy away from weekends or holidays. But since Bohr get 4,000 hits per diem anyway, it seems of little moment. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:21, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Support! It's well-written, and I love Bohr. Beyondallmeaning (talk) 05:07, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Support: important figure in the development of modern physics. Praemonitus (talk) 05:11, 5 November 2013 (UTC)