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Niels Bohr motorcycling with his wife, Margrethe, in around 1930 (Image: Uhlenbeck Collection/American Institute Of Physics/Science Photo Library)

Art鈥檚 effect on science isn鈥檛 always clear, shows Love, Literature, and the Quantum Atom by Finn Aaserud and J.鈥塋. Heilbron

NIELS BOHR was one of the most profound thinkers of the early quantum pioneers. He was the first to truly recognise and confront the philosophical problems posed by the theory. His solutions, such as complementarity and the Copenhagen interpretation, are still debated today.

What impresses most about the Danish scientist鈥檚 thinking is that he could leave consistency to littler minds, happily accepting contradiction when it arose. So what if the 鈥淏ohr atom鈥� violates classical electrodynamics, which says it should decay? So what if waves can be particles? That is just how things are 鈥� or how they seem, which for Bohr was much the same.

聯What impresses most about Bohr鈥檚 thinking is that he left consistency to littler minds聰

Love, Literature, and the Quantum Atom by Finn Aaserud, director of the online , and science historian J. L. Heilbron is valuable for reminding us of this. But it is a peculiar beast, bearing signs of having been cobbled together for this year鈥檚 Bohr atom centenary.

In the first section, Aaserud offers a fresh view of Bohr鈥檚 family life through newly released correspondence, especially with his wife, Margrethe. Next, Heilbron considers Bohr鈥檚 interest in literature, particularly that of Goethe and Ibsen, and links this to the genesis of Bohr鈥檚 atomic theory. And last, the book reprints that theory, presented in three papers in 1913.

Heilbron鈥檚 account of Bohr鈥檚 intellectual journey is insightful and informative, but in linking Bohr鈥檚 literary reading with his science, Heilbron has set himself a more-or-less impossible task. At times, he can pursue it only by finding apt quotes from Ibsen鈥檚 Peer Gynt or Goethe鈥檚 Faust to punctuate the story of Bohr鈥檚 professional life 鈥� regardless of whether or not Bohr had those words in mind. Once we get to the scientific details, Goethe has nothing to add.

This experiment in tracking the influence of the arts on science fails not because a scientist鈥檚 interest in literature and philosophy can never tell us about their science, but because it seems that Bohr鈥檚 cannot.

He did read widely, but on this showing he was addicted to the strain of Germanic-Nordic romanticism that now looks like sentimentality, even chauvinism: great men grapple with mighty tasks, while pure maidens pledge dewy-eyed support.

Margrethe was in fact Bohr鈥檚 staunch, sometimes steely, ally, as he well knew and appreciated. This is why Bohr鈥檚 letters calling her 鈥渕y little one鈥� whom he would, in Ibsen鈥檚 words, 鈥渓ock away as heart鈥檚 treasure鈥� makes you realise how needed modernism and Virginia Woolf were.

For men less noble than Bohr, it is easy to see how these literary visions of struggle and destiny, heroes and Vikings, led down darker paths. There is no inevitable route from Goethe to Goebbels, but the notion of 鈥� the process of self-cultivation and education that pervaded the Germanic-Nordic intellectual world 鈥� bred a patriarchal and patriotic conservatism that made it all but impossible for academics in Germany to resist the Nazis.

That is why I am left with mixed feelings about this glimpse into Bohr鈥檚 hinterland. While it is refreshing to see a great scientist like Bohr being passionate about literature and philosophy, such an education evidently did little in itself to build a moral framework.

The few who, like Bohr and physicist Max von Laue, behaved with something close to heroism in the face of Hitler did so from an inner reserve of integrity that owed little to education. Their generation was neither better nor worse prepared for that challenge than ones reared on Star Trek or Tomb Raider. Whatever it is that makes truly noble, responsible 鈥� let alone successful 鈥� scientists, it isn鈥檛 great art.