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A complete history of early atomic models would fill volumes, but a reasonably coherent
tale of the path from mechanical atoms to the quantum can be told by focusing on the
relevant work of three great contributors to atomic physics, in the critically important
years between 1904 and 1913: J.J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr. We first
examine the origins of Thomson’s mechanical atomic models, from his ethereal vortex atoms
in the early 1880’s, to the myriad “corpuscular” atoms he proposed following the discovery
of the electron in 1897. Beyond qualitative predictions for the periodicity of the
elements, the application of Thomson’s atoms to problems in scattering and absorption led
to quantitative predictions that were confirmed by experiments with high-velocity
electrons traversing thin sheets of metal. Still, the much more massive and energetic
α-particles being studied by Rutherford were better suited for
exploring the interior of the atom, and careful measurements on the angular dependence of
their scattering eventually allowed him to infer the existence of an atomic nucleus. Niels
Bohr was particularly troubled by the radiative instability inherent to any mechanical
atom, and succeeded in 1913 where others had failed in the prediction of emission spectra,
by making two bold hypotheses that were in contradiction to the laws of classical physics,
but necessary in order to account for experimental facts
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