A Quantum of Beer

Niels Bohr was one of the few celebrities among scientists. He was famous in his own lifetime, which is rare among whitecoat types, (I'm speaking here of real scientists rather than disingenuous climatologists). The Carlsburg brewery in Copenhagen gave Bohr what may be the best gift ever after he won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922:

[A] house located next to the brewery. And the best perk of the house? It had a direct pipeline to the brewery so that Bohr had free beer on tap whenever he wanted.

It sounds awesome -- provided they had the foresight to build the house upwind of the brewery. It would be unlivable otherwise. But having that ultimate beer tap on hand may have yielded real and tangible benefits to Bohr's work:

Complementarity is far from intuitve, and many of the basic concepts of quantum mechanics are similarly hard to grapple with. Indeed, Bohr had a series of famous debates with Albert Einstein, in which Einstein was very reluctant to accept quantum mechanics. Einstein resisted many of its implications for years.

So how did Bohr keep his mind supple and flexible, ready to accept new ideas when his peers like Einstein couldn’t? Well, here’s the thing – there are several studies that indicate that being drunk can actually improve your creativity. That’s because it prevents your mind from being able to focus, so it more readily drifts from one connection to another, which can yield creative solutions to problems.

This is true to an extent. One of my hobbies is writing short fiction, and I find that I can more easily concoct a new and original plot line in my head if I've had a few drinks. However, one must take care to avoid actual compositional writing while imbibing. Bad things result.

Benjamin Franklin was famous for using beer as a creative aid when he was in the inventing mood. He also gave us the immortal line: "Beer is a sign that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

It's Friday. Get yer beer on.