Bohr Model of the Atom
Niels Bohr's quantum leap
Summary
In Bohr's model of the atom, electrons move around the nucleus at certain energy levels (orbits). The helium atom shown in the model has 2 protons + 2 neutrons in its nucleus and 2 electrons around it.
In depth
In 1913, Niels Bohr took the first step toward quantum mechanics as a way out of a problem classical physics could not solve: why electrons do not spiral down into the nucleus. According to the model, electrons can only exist at certain quantized energy levels (n = 1, 2, 3, …), where they circle without emitting radiation. When an electron moves from a higher level to a lower one, it emits a photon carrying the energy difference (ΔE = hν). This quantum leap explained the spectral lines of hydrogen (the Balmer and Lyman series) theoretically for the first time. Although modern quantum mechanics has gone beyond this model, it keeps its teaching value because it gave the first quantized view of atomic structure.
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