1915+-+1950


 * Niels Bohr ****1885-1962 **

Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1885. His studies brought him to England where he made great contributes to the atomic theory that got him the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physics. While in Copenhagen during WWII he had to flee the Nazis to New Mexico. There he advised scientists to make the world’s first atom bomb. It was probably his experience with war that pushed him to study such destructive physics.

In 1913 Bohr published his theory of the atom’s structure based on one of Rutherford’s earlier theories. Bohr had worked under Rutherford in Manchester, England and new all about his theory that atoms had a positively charged nucleus and negative electrons. Bohr elaborated upon this to come up with his own theory about how electron’s orbit the nucleus and how they react when an atom is charged.

Bohr’s theory suggested that electrons follow quantum physics. Every electron must be on a specific orbit, none can be in an “in between” space. Also, the outer orbitals can hold more electrons than the inner orbitals; and when an atom is charged the electrons jump away from the nucleus and make their way back in. This movement is what creates the colors of the spectrum. []



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 * Erwin Schrodinger 1887-1961 **



Schrodinger was very active for most of his life. He studied at many different colleges and universities, and published many papers while he was at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin. However he became famous and earned his Nobel Prize for what he did in 1925 and 1926. During this time, he challenged the quantum physics theory proposed by Bohr and came up with his own wave equation. []

The wave equations Schrodinger developed were to disprove the jumping particles of quantum physics. Yet upon further investigation, even though his equations were equivalent and worked, they actually further proved the quantum physics of the atomic world. He presented this work in 1926. After he realized his equations also ‘jumped’ he came up with his Schrodinger’s Cat model to simulate how unreal quantum physics is to our world. []

The planetary model is the most recent model of the atom. The nucleus is of drawn many times bigger than it really is. If fact, if this model was to scale the nucleus would be invisible to the unaided eye. The electrons move on there orbitals according to their quantum laws, and the protons surround the neutrons.