The Bohr Atom *
Bohr postulated that electrons orbited the nucleus like planets orbiting the sun.
He managed to fit the data for Hydrogen by postulating that
electrons orbited the nucleus in circular orbits, and that angular momentum is quantized
such that
, for
.
This is natural since
has units of angular momentum.
Bohr correctly postdicted the Hydrogen energies and the size of the atom.
Balance of forces for circular orbits.
Angular momentum quantization assumption.
Solve for velocity.
Plug into force equation to get formula for
.
Now we just want to plug
and
into the energy formula.
We write the Hydrogen potential in terms of the
fine structure constant
.
We now compute the energy levels.
The constant
eV.
Bohr's formula gives the
right Hydrogen energy spectrum.
We can also compute the ground state radius of the Bohr orbit.
This is also about the right radius.
The name for this number, the
Bohr radius, persists to this day
despite the fact that Bohr's assumption is wrong.
Although angular momentum is quantized in units of
,
the ground state of Hydrogen has zero angular momentum.
This would put Bohr's electron in the nucleus.
Bohr fit the data, with some element of truth,
but his model is WRONG.
Jim Branson
2013-04-22