Harald August Bohr (22 April 1887 – 22 January 1951) was a Danish

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

. After receiving his doctorate in 1910, Bohr became an eminent mathematician, founding the field of almost periodic functions. His brother was the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfre ...

-winning physicist

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...

. He was a member of the Danish national football team for the

1908 Summer Olympics The 1908 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the IV Olympiad and also known as London 1908) were an International sport, international multi-sport event held in London, England, United Kingdom, from 27 April to 31 October 1908. Th ...

, where he won a silver medal.

Biography

Bohr was born in 1887 to Christian Bohr, a professor of physiology, from a Lutheran background, and Ellen Adler Bohr, a woman from a wealthy Jewish family of local renown. Harald had a close relationship with his elder brother, which ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

'' likened to that between Captain Cuttle and Captain Bunsby in

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

' '' Dombey and Son''.

Mathematical career

Like his father and brother before him, in 1904 Bohr enrolled at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

, where he studied mathematics, obtaining his master's degree in 1909 and his doctorate a year later. Among his tutors were Hieronymus Georg Zeuthen and Thorvald N. Thiele. Bohr worked in mathematical analysis; much of his early work was devoted to

Dirichlet series In mathematics, a Dirichlet series is any series of the form \sum_^\infty \frac, where ''s'' is complex, and a_n is a complex sequence. It is a special case of general Dirichlet series. Dirichlet series play a variety of important roles in analyti ...

including his doctorate, which was entitled ''Bidrag til de Dirichletske Rækkers Theori'' (''Contributions to the Theory of Dirichlet Series''). A collaboration with

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

-based

Edmund Landau Edmund Georg Hermann Landau (14 February 1877 – 19 February 1938) was a German mathematician who worked in the fields of number theory and complex analysis. Biography Edmund Landau was born to a Jewish family in Berlin. His father was Leopo ...

resulted in the Bohr–Landau theorem, regarding the distribution of zeroes in zeta functions. Bohr worked in

mathematical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series (m ...

, founding the field of almost periodic functions, and worked with the

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

mathematician G. H. Hardy. In 1915 he became a professor at

Polyteknisk Læreanstalt The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fir ...

(today

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fir ...

), working there until 1930, when he took a professorship at the University of Copenhagen. He remained in this post for 21 years until his death in 1951. Børge Jessen was one of his students there. He was a visiting professor at Stanford University during the academic year 1930–1931. He was a visiting scholar at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

in the summer of 1948. In the 1930s Bohr was a leading critic of the anti-Semitic policies taking root in the German mathematical establishment, publishing an article criticising Ludwig Bieberbach's ideas in '' Berlingske Aften'' in 1934.

Football

Bohr was also an excellent football player. He had a long playing career with

Akademisk Boldklub Akademisk Boldklub Gladsaxe (or AB) is a Danish professional football club from Gladsaxe north of Copenhagen, currently playing at the 3rd highest level of Danish domestic football in the Danish 2nd Division group 1. The club was established on ...

, making his debut as a 16-year-old in 1903. During the 1905 season he played alongside his brother

Niels Niels is a male given name, equivalent to Nicholas, which is common in Denmark, Belgium, Norway (formerly) and the Netherlands. The Norwegian and Swedish variant is Nils. The name is a developed short form of Nicholas or Greek Nicolaos after Saint ...

, who was a goalkeeper. Harald was selected to play for the Danish national team in the

, where football was an official event for the first time. Though a Danish side had played at the

1906 Intercalated Games The 1906 Intercalated Games or 1906 Olympic Games was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated in Athens, Greece. They were at the time considered to be Olympic Games and were referred to as the "Second International Olympic Games i ...

, the opening match of the 1908 Olympic tournament was Denmark's first official international football match. Bohr scored two goals as Denmark beat the French "B" team 9–0. In the next match, the semi-final, Bohr played in a 17–1 win against

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

, which remains an Olympic record. Denmark faced hosts

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

in the final, but lost 2–0, and Bohr won a silver medal. After the Olympics he made one further appearance for the national team, in a 2–1 victory against an England amateur team in 1910. His popularity as a footballer was such that when he defended his doctoral thesis the audience was reported as having more football fans than mathematicians.

Teacher

Bohr was known as an extremely capable academic teacher and the annual award for outstanding teaching at the

is called the Harald, in honour of Harald Bohr. With Johannes Mollerup, Bohr wrote an influential four-volume textbook ''Lærebog i Matematisk Analyse'' (''Textbook in mathematical analysis'').

Kaj Munk

Following the murder of

Kaj Munk Kaj Harald Leininger Munk (commonly called Kaj Munk) (13 January 1898 – 4 January 1944) was a Danish playwright and Lutheran pastor, known for his cultural engagement and his martyrdom during the Occupation of Denmark of World War II. He i ...

on 4 January 1944 the Danish resistance newspaper '' De frie Danske'' brought condemning reactions from influential Scandinavians, including Bohr.

References

External links

*
Danish national team profile

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bohr, Harald 1887 births 1951 deaths 20th-century Danish mathematicians Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Danish footballers Olympic footballers of Denmark Olympic silver medalists for Denmark Footballers at the 1908 Summer Olympics Denmark international footballers Akademisk Boldklub players Harald Olympic medalists in football Danish Jews Danish people of Jewish descent Medalists at the 1908 Summer Olympics Association football midfielders Jewish footballers Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences