The Quantum Mechanical Model
★ Learning Target - Be able to explain Wave-Particle Duality.
Bohr's model of the atom described how electrons move in orbits around the nucleus of the atom. This means that the electrons can occupy only a specific location around the nucleus, and there is nothing in between.
Bohr’s model had its limitations. The concept was almost too perfect and didn’t accurately describe the electron’s behavior with larger atoms. It didn’t describe the different energy levels of larger atoms.
This led to the idea of Wave-Particle Duality.
In 1924, Louis de Broglie proposed the idea that waves exist as not only particles that orbit a nucleus, but they move in waves as well. Louis de Broglie used Bohr, Planck & Einstein’s work to conclude that electrons should be considered waves that are confined to the space around the nucleus.
Double-slit experiment - this experiment shows when photons are propelled through a wall that has two openings, they will create a pattern at the back of the next wall that is consistent with a wave-like pattern.
This means that electrons do not orbit the nucleus like planets orbiting the sun, that they move in a much more complicated way. A 3-dimensional way.
In 1926, Erwin Schrödinger developed an equation that treated electrons as waves.
Putting everything together, quantization, energy, frequencies, Schrödinger’s equations were able to provide specific frequencies, and specific energies of electrons in larger elements.
Watch the video below that explains Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment, and how it explains how the energy and position of electrons can never be known.
★ Learning Target - Be able to explain the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
In 1927, Werner Heisenberg suggested that it was impossible to know exactly where an electron is located at all times.
The fan analogy helps to explain the uncertainty principle and differentiate the Bohr model from the Quantum Model.
The fan on the left is not moving, so it's easy to tell exactly where the fan blade is at. This is representative of the Bohr Model.
However, we know that electrons carry a lot of energy and are traveling extremely fast. The fan on the right shows how you can't know exactly where the fan blade is at at any given time.
Similarly, an electron's energy and position cannot be know for sure. You can only calculate it's probability.
★ Learning Target - Be able to explain the Quantum Mechanical Model.
The current model of the atom weaves Bohr's model with Wave-Particle Duality, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, bas well as the works of Einstein, Maxwell, Planck, de Broglie and Schrödinger together to create...
The Quantum Mechanical Model of the Atom
the electron is a particle of matter that travels in specific spaces around the nucleus as a wave.
And all it took was the most brilliant collection of minds ever assembled.
★ Learning Target - Be able to explain Quantum Theory.
Quantum Theory - describes mathematically the wave properties of electrons.
Electrons are particles that travel through space as a wave.
Based on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Schrodinger's wave equations determine only the probability of finding an electron at a given place around the nucleus.