Niels Bohr - GCSE Physics Definition

Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who made important contributions to our understanding of the atom, which is a basic unit of matter. He is best known for his model of the atom, where he proposed that electrons orbit the nucleus in specific paths or "shells", and that the atom has a small positively charged nucleus. This model helped explain how atoms emit and absorb energy, which we see as light. Bohr's work was a big step in developing quantum theory, which is a key part of modern physics. For his contributions, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.