Abstract
One of the first important clues to understanding atomic structure involved the study of the emission and absorption of light by the atoms of different elements. Physicists knew from Maxwell’s theory that light is emitted and absorbed only by accelerating charges. This suggested that the atom might contain moving charges. Patterns and regularities in the properties of the light emitted we expected to provide valuable clues about the precise nature of the motions of the moving charges. The results of this study were so important to the unraveling of atomic structure that we review their development here in some detail.
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Further Reading
G. Holton and S.G. Brush, Physics, The Human Adventure ( Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001 ), Chapter 28.
C.H. Townes, How the Laser Happened: Adventures of a Scientist (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999 ).
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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Cassidy, D., Holton, G., Rutherford, J. (2002). The Quantum Model of the Atom. In: Understanding Physics. Undergraduate Texts in Contemporary Physics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-7698-0_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-7698-0_14
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-7700-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-7698-0
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