Chemistry- Unit 1- Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr in atom discovery.

Who was Niels Bohr?

Niels Bohr was a Danish scientist who worked with Ernest Rutherford at Cambridge University on his development of atomic structure.

Who was the inspiration?

Previously a physicist called Max Planck had been developing ideas about energy and how this energy could be used.

Built on Planck’s idea

Bohr built on Plank’s ideas about energy and used them to try and develop an understanding of how the electrons may be positioned within the atom.

Bohr’s Hypothesis

Bohr hypothesised that the electrons were attracted toward and surrounded the atom’s nucleus until some amount of energy was applied which caused the electron to move away from the nucleus.

Bohr’s model

He devised a model which described a central nucleus with the electrons orbiting the nucleus in distinct energy levels or shells. Bohr suggested that these electron shells were at great distances from the nucleus which accounted for the amount of empty space inside an atom.

What dictated the reactivity of an atom?

He also suggested that the fullness or otherwise of these energy shells was what dictated the reactivity of an atom.