The Structure of Atoms

Abstract

So far, this book has dealt almost exclusively with classical physics, which is a theoretical structure based on many brilliant and imaginative experiments performed on macroscopic objects, that is on objects of about our size or a few orders of magnitude smaller or larger. Classical physics was found to give good results when extrapolated downward to molecules and upward to planets, stars, and galaxies, and it was seriously suggested ate in the nineteenth century that all the major discoveries in physics had been made — that the physical basis of the universe was understood and that only minor tidying-up remained.