Biking in Copenhagen

Biking in Copenhagen is just outstanding. Even I can do it!

Every street has a bike lane on each side that is physically separated from traffic by a curb. Every bike lane is easily wide enough for two bikes, so you can pass. Here is a typical setup: pedestrians on the sidewalk, bike in the bike lane, cars in the road. This street is one-way so there’s only one bike lane, on the near side.

Here is a busy arterial with separated spaces for pedestrians, bikes, parked cars, bus stops, and car/bus traffic.

There’s room for people to get out of their cars because the bike lane is so wide, and people are very attentive to bikes. The curb between sidewalk and bike lane is only an inch high so you can ride onto or off the sidewalk if you need to. At intersections, bikes have their own stop line, ahead of the cars.

There is a system of signals that is perfectly intuitive: the big signal is for cars, the small signal is for bikes, and the one that looks like a person is for pedestrians. They are timed for everyone to cross safely. Here is an extra-complex intersection featuring a left turn lane from the bike lane, with its own signal. (The guy in the crosswalk is walking his bike because he’s with a friend.)

At very large intersections, blue lanes guide bikes and alert cars to where bikes will be.

 

It all makes total sense and is simply wonderful. You see so much on a bike and get everywhere so quickly! Yesterday I zipped out to a museum, then a bakery for lunch, and the ride was half the fun, with church bells ringing and swan boats in front of historic buildings on the lake and a sign noting the place where Oersted discovered the connection between electricity and magnetism. I’m in Copenhagen!

Archival research

I had a wonderful first day in Copenhagen! Jer, Leslie, and I toured the Niels Bohr Institute, “where the foundation of atomic physics and modern physics was created in a creative scientific environment inspired by Niels Bohr in the 1920s and 30s.”



There was a public tour, led by the archivist (whose name is Rob), who told lots of stories. You can sit at Bohr’s desk, but the archivist said the real place where it all happened was at the conference table.



The most exciting part for me was after the tour, when Leslie and I assisted Jer with a bit of archival research. Bohr’s scientific correspondence is all digitized and available online, but Jer wanted to sniff around in some of the funding records, and those are just on paper in orderly boxes. The archivist got us set up, Jer told us what to look for, and I photographed a stack of papers. Leslie also posed with a Bohr statue.

It was fascinating. First of all, it was an extraordinary feeling to hold papers in my hand that Niels Bohr had held in his hand. They were mostly in Danish; but behold the wonder of Google Translate:

(There was also handwritten material, which was amazing, but google mostly couldn’t make it out.) Most of what I was looking at was Bohr’s correspondence with the Carlsberg Beer company, which funded scientific research back then, just like Novo Nordisk does now [https://use.ku.dk/]. The files included requests for funding, budget justifications, expense reports, thank you letters — “boring” stuff, in a way, but it was such a delight, so relatable, that freaking Niels Bohr had to do the same kind of bureaucratic whatever that I have to do all the time. I loved it.

A funny thing was that many of the letters were signed “Erbødigst,” and I had never heard of anyone by that name. Turns out it is the Danish equivalent of “Sincerely.” hahaha

Jer had a good time with a pile of letters from Bohr either supporting, or not supporting, other people’s requests for funding to work with him. When he was not supporting the application, he used standard language: “I cannot offer you any detailed judgment of [the applicant]'s scientific qualifications.” – full stop. Which, in academia, would definitely come across as “This proposal is a steaming heap.” Jer found one application from a guy who claimed to have discovered a "general mathematical law -- the law of the relativity of health, sex, physica, mental, and psycho-sexual characteristics"; this guy was applying for a fellowship to work with Bohr to find out how it all fit together with quantum mechanics. Hilarious, that quantum crackpots/mystics/pseudoscientists were just as much of a thing in 1925 as they are now. In response to this application, Bohr said “I cannot offer you any detailed judgment of Dr. Kelcik's scientific qualifications, but in confidence I may say that the general statements in his application leaves it doubtful whether his scientific standard attains a level whcih I understand to be expected from fellows of your foundation." Definitely a steaming heap.