The Bohr atom

In 1913 a model with a plainly impossible assumption in it reproduced the hydrogen spectrum to a few parts in a hundred thousand. Both halves of that sentence are true, and this page is about holding them together.

Balmer (1885) · Rydberg (1890) · Bohr (1913)
Planck's h → · Einstein's quantum →

1 · Every line is a jump spectrum, orbits and energy levels are one event drawn three ways

6  (n = 1 … 6)
How to read this picture, and what it draws that is not so 6 conventions

2 · From the jump to the line Rydberg's formula, filled in

Wavelength
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Energy given up
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    Where R comes from, and Bohr's own check of 1913 the constant, derived

      3 · Where it breaks

      Momentum from the uncertainty relation:

      What goes wrong

        What this panel draws, and what it is not conventions & caveats

        4 · The ledger everything the model assumes, what is true instead, and how much it costs