Bohr’s Atom (1913-1925)

Alan A. Grometstein

Chapter Chapter 10 in The Roots of Things, 1999, pp 261-291 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Rutherford’s model of the atom as a miniature Copernican planetary system was a grand concept: it appealed to the imagination and was immediately adopted. The image was quite clear, quite anschaulich: the nucleus was at the center and the electrons (as Rutherford assumed and everyone agreed) were in circular orbits about the nucleus. Why did the electrons have to be in orbit? To counter the attraction of the positively charged nucleus: if an electron were at rest, it would be drawn into the nucleus and the atom would collapse.2 Why did Rutherford assume the orbits were circular? For no strong reason: it was the simplest assumption he could make and would serve for the present. Other questions, such as the size of the orbits and the planes of the orbits, he did not address. (In the solar system, for cosmological reasons that don’t apply to atoms, all planets have orbital planes that are within a few degrees of each other—the solar system is flat. But there was no reason to expect that electron orbits would be coplanar.)

Keywords: Angular Momentum; Spectral Line; Circular Orbit; Test Particle; Anode Voltage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4615-4877-5_10

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