Zach-week+9

It is interesting that Bohr writes about the great breakthrough in science that came with the introduction of Rutherford’s model of the atom. While his model was revolutionary and had several truths to it, it was after all wrong. Rutherford’s “discovery of the atomic nucleus (I9II) revealed at once the inadequacy of classical mechanical and electromagnetic concepts to explain the inherent stability of the atom.” The discovery still resulted in a wrong model however. Bohr’s model that came only two years later should have really been the breakthrough that made clear the flaws in past sciences. He seems to be incredibly modest when his model of the atom is very close to the current model believed to be extremely accurate.

Bohr seems to have a very high regard to Einstein as he say that “Important progress in the development of quantum theory was made by Einstein himself.” Later, he goes on to say, “he showed that Planck's law for thermal radiation could be simply deduced from assumptions conforming to the basic ideas of the quantum theory of atomic constitution.” Einstein’s ability to “simply” deduce Plank’s law was probably a bit more complicated than simple though. Bohr also describes his encounter with him by saying, “When I had the great experience of meeting Einstein for the first time.” Clearly, Bohr was very impressed with everything that Einstein did and accomplished.

Finally, in his paper, Bohr talks about the experiment of passing photons through either one or two narrow slits. This experiment is extremely confusing and seems to offer no explanation. He talks about the role that many prominent scientists played in this experiment and their thoughts on the matter. The released photons act as particles sometimes, but other times they act as waves. This seems completely impossible, yet it still happens. The only explanation is that the photons behave different when being watched. However, it is unknown how these particles, or should we say waves, knows that they are being observed.