Aage Petersen

Aage Petersen (1927-1992) was a key player in the transmission of Niels Bohr’s philosophical ideas to the next generations. While Petersen tried his hardest to report Bohr’s views accurately, it seems that he did not always succeed in this regard. In fact, Petersen is responsible for some of the most significant misunderstandings of Bohr’s point of view.

Background

Petersen was born in 1927 in Tørsbul, in southern Jutland, close to the border with Germany. After his father’s death in 1932, Aage’s mother moved him and his brother to Gråsten. Aage became a star student at the gymnasium in Sønderborg, and the matriculated in physics at the University of Copenhagen. As with several other famous Danish intellectuals, Petersen lived in Regensen during his years as a student.

Petersen was Bohr’s personal assistant from 1952 to 1962. He was on the team (along with Thomas Kuhn) who did the final interviews with Niels Bohr in 1962. His 1966 PhD thesis was published in 1968 as Quantum Physics and the Philosophical Tradition. After Niels Bohr’s death, Petersen took a position at Yeshiva University in NYC, where he worked with (among others) Yakir Aharonov.

There is some remaining mystery what happened with Aage in the 1980s, but he eventually ended up in a nursing home in New Mexico, where he died in 1992.

To be documented: Petersen spent fall of 1954 at Princeton along with Niels Bohr. Here he befriended Hugh Everett. See also 1957 letter from Petersen to Everett. http://hdl.handle.net/10575/1180

(Personal communication from David Albert to HH: In the 1970s, Aage Petersen had grown disillusioned with Bohr’s point of view.)

(Petersen 1963) (Petersen 1968)