Harald Bohr correspondence

• The destiny of Harald Bohr's correspondence
• List of major correspondents (more than 1 letter)
• List of minor correspondents

The destiny of Harald Bohr's correspondence

According to Asger Aaboe (Yale University), who has had contact with the surviving relatives, the left over of Bohr's collection of correspondence (among other things his correspondence with Godfrey H. Hardy) was kept by Bohr's wife Ulla Bohr for many years, but destroyed by her in the 1970s. There is probably no more correspondence kept by the surviving relatives, at least not any scientific correspondence, and the only part of Bohr's own collection of correspondence which has survived are the letters in the Harald Bohr Papers and some family correspondence (mainly letters to and from his brother Niels) kept in the Family correspondence at the Niels Bohr Archive.

Hence, the major part of the correspondence listed below is located in other collections. The correspondents are divided in two groups. The first group, which is given alphabetical in a table with links to more details, consists of correspondents where more than one letter to or from Bohr has been conserved. The second group consists of all the minor correspondents where only one letter to or from Bohr has been conserved.

List of Harald Bohr's major correspondents

Hanne Adler's letters to Harald Bohr

Adler was one of Bohr's aunts. The letters are two postcard to Harald and Niels Bohr during their visit to Göttingen in the summer of 1911. They are located in the Family Correspondence, Niels Bohr Papers, Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen.

The correspondence between Thøger Bang and Harald Bohr

The correspondence is about proof reading of articles, Bang's visit to Bohr's cottage (where mathematicians gathered during the summer) and about Laurent Schwartz. The correspondence is located in the Thøger Bang Papers possessed privately by the widow Eva Bang, Copenhagen.

The correspondence between Otto Blumenthal and Harald Bohr

The letter to Blumenthal is written jointly by Bohr and Richard Courant. The correspondence is about David Hilbert's attempt to get rid of Luitzen E. J. Brouwer in the editorial board of the journal Mathematische Annalen. The location of the originals is not known. A photo copy of the correspondence is in the file CB MA (Mathematische Annalen), the Brouwer Archief, the Netherlands.

Salomon C. Bochner's letters to Harald Bohr

Bochner's letters are about the theory of almost periodic functions and one of them contains his simplified proof of the Weierstrass approximation theorem for almost periodic functions. The letters are located in folder 6, box 2, Harald Bohr Papers, The Archive, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The correspondence between Harald and Niels Bohr

The content shows the close relationship between the two brothers and their families. The correspondence before 1920 gives details about their mutual help in their student years and about their early scientific experience abroad (Harald in Göttingen, Niels in England). The correspondence is located in the Family Correspondence, Niels Bohr Papers, Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen. A part of the correspondence from 1909-16 has been published in Niels Bohr: Collected Works, Volume I: Early Works (1905-11), edited by L. Rosenfeld and J. Rud Nielsen. North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1972, pp. 495-589

Harald Bohr's letters to Viggo Brun

Bohr writes about his participation in a meeting in Innsbruck (1924), displaced German mathematicians (1933-34), the Scandinavian congresses of mathematicians in Copenhagen (1946) and Trondheim (1949), Carl L. Siegel and Helen Braun's stay in Denmark (1947) and the attempt to create a professorship in Norway to keep Atle Selberg there. The letters are located in Brevsamling 719 [Letter collection 719] at the University Library of Oslo, Norway.

Harald Bohr's letters to Torsten Carleman

Bohr writes about The letters are located at Mathematics, Faculty of Sciences, Lund University, Sweden.

The correspondence between Harald Bohr and Richard Courant

The correspondence before 1945 is in German and possessed privately by Ernest D. Courant (New York). There is originals of Bohr's letters and carbon copies of Courant's letters. The major part of the content is about the attempts to help German mathematicians, who were displaced by the Nazis from 1933, to get positions outside Germany. There is also information about their colleagues, mathematical works and the contacts to publishers, especially the Springer-Verlag.
The correspondence after 1945 is in English and kept in the Harald Bohr Archive Correspondence Folder, in the archival Courant file cabinets, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York (not in the library). The content is mainly about family matters and their mutual visits after 1945.

The correspondence between Paul Ehrenfest and Harald Bohr

They may be found at ESC 1, Section 5, No. 137-49 on the microfilm of the Ehrenfest Papers, which is located at Museum Boerhaave, Leiden, the Netherlands.

The correspondence between Abraham Flexner and Harald Bohr

These letters are about how to help displaced German mathematicians to find new positions in the USA. They are located in the Members file: Professor Harold Bohr, Historical Studies - Social Science Library, Institute for Advanced Study, New Jersey.

The correspondence between Harald Bohr and Aage Friis

It is located, together with further relevant material, in the Aage Friis Papers, the Danish National Archives, Copenhagen.

Godfrey H. Hardy's letters to Harald Bohr

They are described and located in folder 8, box 2, Harald Bohr Papers, The Archive, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

The correspondence between Helmut Hasse and Harald Bohr

There is one letter from 1926 written by Hasse located at the library, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Southern Denmark.
The rest of the letters are from 1934 and about Deutsche Mathematik. Copies of them exist as enclosures to letters from Bohr to Veblen in the general correspondence folder Bohr, Harold 1922-51, Box 3, Oswald Veblen Papers, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA.

The letters from Harald Bohr to Erich Hecke

They were located at the the Mathematisches Seminar, Universität Hamburg, Germany (1996), but copies of all letters are in the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, Denmark.

The letters from Harald Bohr to Eli Heckscher

They are located in signum L 67:6 (Eli Heckscher), Department of Manuscript, The Royal Library, Stockholm, Sweden.

The letters from Harald Bohr to Harald Höffding

They are located in NKS 3815-4^o, the Manuscript Department, the National Library, Copenhagen, Denmark.

The correspondence between Børge Jessen and Harald Bohr

The correspondence is located in the general correspondence folders Harald Bohr 1928-40 and Harald Bohr 1941-, the Børge Jessen Papers, the Archive, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Correspondence between Edmund Landau and Harald Bohr

They are described and located in folder 9 and 10, box 2, Harald Bohr Papers, The Archive, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

The letters from Harald Bohr to Magnus Gustaf Mittag-Leffler

They are located in the Mittag-Leffler Papers, Institut Mittag-Leffler, Djursholm, Sweden.

The letters from Harald and Ulla Bohr to Julius Pál

They are located in box 1 of the Julius Pál papers, The Archive, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

The correspondence between Harald Bohr and Robert Oppenheimer

They are located in the Members file: Professor Harold Bohr, Historical Studies - Social Science Library, Institute for Advanced Study, New Jersey.

The letters from Harald Bohr to Carl Wilhelm Oseen

They are located in the Carl W. Oseen Papers in the library of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm.

The letters from Harald Bohr to Georg Pólya

There is one letter from 1914, which is located in the Folder 11, Box 1, Pólya Papers, Special Collection 337, Department of Special Collections, The Stanford University Libraries, Stanford. The rest of the letters from 1922-26 are located in Briefe an der Mathematiker Georg Pólya, Hs. 89: 60-68, Wissenschafthistorische Sammlungen, ETH-Bibliotek, Zürich.

Harald Bohr's correspondence with Svante Elis Strömgren

The letters are located at the University Library of Lund.

Harald Bohr's letters to Gabor Szegö

Bohr writes about mathematics (almost periodic functions), as editor of Mathematische Annalen, about displaced German scholars and about family matters. One of the letters is written by Bohr's wife Ulla. The letters are located in Folder 20, Box 5, Szegö Papers, Special Collection 323, Department of Special Collections, The Stanford University Libraries, Stanford.

The correspondence between Harald Bohr and Oswald Veblen

Except for two letters the correspondence is located in the general correspondence folder Bohr, Harold 1922-51, Box 3, Oswald Veblen Papers, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA. Two letters from July and October 1947 are located the Faculty file: Siegel, Carl L., Historical Studies - Social Science Library, Institute for Advanced Study, New Jersey.

Harald Bohr's letters to Norbert Wiener

Bohr writes about almost periodic functions, his plan of a book about this subject, about Wiener's career and about displaced German scholars. The letters are located in the Wiener Papers, Manuscript Collection 22, Institute Archives and Special Collections, The Libraries, MIT, Massachusetts.

Harald Bohr's letters to Hermann Weyl

Bohr writes about reflection on almost periodic functions and congratulate Weyl for getting Hilbert's professorship in Göttingen. The letters are located in Briefe an der Mathematiker Hermann Weyl, Hs. 90: 486-87, Wissenschafthistorische Sammlungen, ETH-Bibliotek, Zürich.

List of minor correspondents

• List of minor receivers
• List of minor senders

List of minor receivers

Bjerknes, Vilhelm 1945 (Danish)

Location: Brevsamling 469B [Letter collection 469B] at the University Library of Oslo, Norway.
Content: Bohr thanks for a received book and describes the liberation of Denmark in May 1945.

Brouwer, Luitzen E. J. 1928 (German)

Location: In the file CB BOL (Bologna Congress), the Brouwer Archief, the Netherlands.
Content: Bohr's reaction to Brouwer's suggestion to the German mathematicians to boycot the International Congress in Bologna 1928.

Carathéodory, Constantin 1928 (German)

Location: In the file CB MA (Mathematische Annalen), the Brouwer Archief, the Netherlands.
Content: Bohr has written the letter together with Courant. It is about the editorial problems in the journal Mathematische Annalen.

Drachmann, A. B. 1919 (Danish)

Location: In the collection Utilg. 188, the Manuscript Department, the National Library, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Holmgren, Israel 1944 (Danish)

Location: Brevsamling Israel Holmgren [Collection of letters, Israel Holmgren], Uppsala University Library, Sweden.

Hopf, Heinz 1949 (German)

Location: Briefe an der Mathematiker Heinz Hopf, Hs. 621: 269, Wissenschafthistorische Sammlungen, ETH-Bibliotek, Zürich.

Prytz, K. 1920 (Danish)

Location: In the collection NKS 2752-2^o , the Manuscript Department, the National Library, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Rantzau 1948 (Danish)

Location: Folder 28, box 10, Harald Bohr Papers, The Archive, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Salomonsen, Carl J. 1917 (Danish)

Location: In the collection NKS 2741, 2^o B. I. b. 1., the Manuscript Department, the National Library, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Severi 1934 (German)

Location: A copy exists as enclosure to a letter from Bohr to Veblen in the general correspondence folder Bohr, Harold 1922-51, Box 3, Oswald Veblen Papers, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA.

List of minor senders

Brazma 1940 (German)

Christian X 1910 (Danish)

Erdös, Paul 1948 (German)

Fuglede, Bent 1948 (Danish)

Neugebauer, Otto 1932 (German)

Nørlund, Niels Erik 1946 (Danish)

Paludan-Müller, K. 1950 (Danish)

Perron, Oskar 1934 (German)

Rademacher, Hans 1934 (German)

Richardson, R. G. D. 1935 (English)

Rogosinski, Werner 1936 (German)

Sommerfeld, Arnold 1934 (German)

Last updated: 2000.06.07