Atomic Structure

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In 1911, Bohr traveled to England to studies at Cambridge with Sir J J Thomson, but did not get along well with Thomson.  Soon after meeting Ernest Rutherford, he moved to work with him in March of 1912, to the Victoria University of Manchester on the structure of the atom. While working in this group, Bohr used quantum ideas by Plank and Einstein to surmise that an atom could exist only in a discrete set of stable energy states. After working with Rutherford’s group he returned to Copenhagen in July of 1912, where he continued to develop his new theory of the atom.  He completed his work in 1913, and in that same year published three papers of fundamental significance.  The first paper of these three papers was on the hydrogen atom; the second and third on the structure of atoms heavier than hydrogen.

The Bohr atomic model was a description of the structure of atoms, primarily that of hydrogen. This model was a radical tangent from earlier, classical descriptions of the atom.  The Bohr atomic model was the first that incorporated quantum theory and was the forerunner of wholly quantum mechanic models.  The Bohr model describes the properties of atomic electrons in terms of a set of possible values.  Bohr amended the view of motion considering that an atom had a tiny positively charged core surrounded by light, planetary negative electrons, by bringing the model in line with the regular patterns of light emitted from real hydrogen atoms.  By limiting the orbit of the electrons, Bohr accounted for the series of discrete wavelengths in the emission spectrum of hydrogen.  Bohr also gave insight to much more.