1. The Bohr Model of the Hydrogen Atom

2. Some Background on Neils Bohr Neils Bohr (1885-1962) -Born in Copenhagen, Denmark. -Worked with Ernst Rutherford in England. -Nobel Laureate (1922) for his work in Particle Physics. -In 1940’s he served as a consultant at Los Alomos NM, for the atomic bomb project. -In 1955 he organized a conference of Scientists and Politicians with a hope to control the spread of nuclear weapons around the world.

3. Why did Bohr pick Hydrogen? Hydrogen is the simplest atom. It has one electron in it’s structure. It has a simple line spectrum.

4. What did Bohr suggest after seeing the line spectrum of Hydrogen? The lines of different colours suggested that electrons travel at orbits of fixed energy. In other words, electrons orbit at a constant distance from the nucleus, and they don’t move from that energy level unless they are forced to move.

5. What does the word “quantized” mean? Bohr said that if an electron is quantized, it means that the electron has a specific amount of energy. The word “quantum” means an “amount of energy”. “Quantized”? Oh come on, you’re just making that word up! No, it’s all right here on the bohrd... Get it? THE BOHRD! Oh that cracks me up!

6. Can we put that another way? Think about an electron like a ball on a staircase. -The ball can only be found on a step, never in between steps. -This is just like an electron, it is only found at specific energy levels, never in between energy levels in an atom.

7. How did Bohr explain the different colours of lines in the line spectrum of the Hydrogen atom?

8. Explain the flaw in Bohr’s Model of the atom. Bohr’s model worked very well for explaining the line spectrum of the Hydrogen atom. It did not work very well for explaining the atoms of other elements. Neils, You should never make your atomic models to scale! Blast! I’ve lost another one! Arrgh!

9. Explain the strengths of the Bohr model. Bohr’s model could explain why atoms are stable and the electrons don’t crash into the nucleus because they travel at fixed energy levels. Bohr’s model could explain the line spectrum of elements, because energized elements give off light with very specific wavelengths as electrons transition between energy levels.