Photo by Anika Huizinga on Unsplash

Being a scientist doesn’t always pay off, but when it does, you get instant recognition and everything you say or do gets framed. It was the case of Niels Bohr, who enjoyed merging empirical knowledge to philosophy with every chance he got.

A Nobel Prize winner, Bohr made substantial contributions to understanding the atomic structure and quantum theory. Quantum physics differs from classical physics in that one is less “fixed” than the other. Bohr seemingly translated this into plain English when he said:

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

—Niels Bohr

In 1913, the Danish physicist introduced the Bohr model of the atom, which said that electrons, although revolving in stable orbits around the nucleus, can jump from one orbit to another – essentially another energy level. The Bohr model has since been improved through the work of other scientists, but its underlying principles remain unchallenged.

Perhaps more relevant (in reference to today’s quote) is Bohr’s principle of complementarity, where items can be separately analyzed by looking at their contradictory properties. For instance, electromagnetic radiation behaving as a wave and a stream of particles at the same time. Bohr’s thinking in science as well as philosophy was predominantly based on complementarity.