Rutherford–Bohr Model of the Atom

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to the Rutherford–Bohr model of the atom that Bohr introduced in 1913, combining Rutherford’s concept (1912) of the nuclear atom with Planck’s idea (1900) of quantized nature of black body radiation. The model, based on four postulates that combine classical mechanics with the concept of angular momentum quantization of atomic orbital electron, works well for one-electron structures such as the hydrogen atom, referred to as the Bohr atom. The chapter starts with the determination, from first principles, of orbital radius, velocity, binding energy, and emission spectrum for one-electron structures and concludes with a discussion of issues related to multi-electron atoms, such as the Hartree approximation, periodic table of elements, ionization energy of atoms, and experimental confirmation of the Rutherford–Bohr atomic model.