Speaker
Description
Bohr’s deep and in some respects fruitful interest in the interface between physics and biology should not overshadow the fact that he and his institute was in general remarkably foreign to inter- or crossdisciplinary aspects of physics. Thus, despite some work was done on quantum chemistry in the late 1920s (Ø. Burrau), it was not followed up. Likewise, there were a few early contributions to astrophysics (S. Rosseland; S. Chandrasekhar), but soon the interest vanished. No-one expressed the slightest interest in cosmology. As a third and different example, solid-state physics was almost completely ignored until after Bohr’s death. Given that solid-state physics is not separate from physics, in the latter case it makes more sense to speak of ‘intersubdisciplinarity’ than interdisciplinarity. In all three cases (geophysics could also be included), by ignoring borderline areas of what in Copenhagen was considered mainstream physics, largely atomic and nuclear physics, the institute missed the opportunity to contribute to new and important branches of research.
