Skip over navigation  Niels Bohr  Final Years  The Bomb  Study &
Essay  Bohr returned to Denmark and resumed his role at the
Copenhagen Institute. The homecoming brought tears to many eyes,
and a large celebration was planned to celebrate his sixtieth
birthday. Interest in atomic energy was inevitable and soon
occupied many minds at the Institute.  Following his failure to
induce political action, Bohr urged the scientific community to
take the first steps toward cooperation. He hoped that prewar
bonds could be reestablished and strengthened, so that physics
itself could lay the foundation for international cooperation.
In 1951 Bohr called a meeting of Institute alumni.
Representatives of fourteen European countries met in Copenhagen
to plan the Conseil Européenne Recherche Nucléaire (CERN), of
which Bohr became chairman. The program called for a research
facility that would cost about $28 million, and the Geneva
establishment would undoubtedly become the most advanced
European institute devoted to research f