Ever since the painstakingly developed BKS theory was beaten to a pulp by Chen Muwu, Kapitsa and Blackett, Bohr's former assistant Kramers began to fail.
Not long ago, he was finally discharged from Copenhagen University Hospital.
Afterwards, Kramers took his wife and ran back to the Netherlands from Denmark overnight.
Although there was a master-disciple relationship between him and Bohr, no matter how great the master-disciple relationship was, it was not as important as saving his life.
Without his assistant, Bohr is now a loner at the Institute of Theoretical Physics. If he wants to write a paper in the future, he can only randomly select a lucky audience member from among his several doctoral students to be his recorder.
This morning, after Bohr entered the office, he found a letter on his desk with a postmark from Cambridgeshire, England.
Bohr thought that this letter should be from his teacher Rutherford, because in July, when the BKS paper published in the "Proceedings of the Natural Science" was hit hard by Chen Muwu and their experimental phenomena, he was in Cornwall. Rutherford, who was on vacation at the seaside, was the first person to write a letter to comfort him.
In his letter, Rutherford advised Bohr not to be depressed because of temporary gains and losses, and he also used himself as an example, saying that the atomic model proposed by Bohr also negated to a certain extent the model he had proposed earlier. Atomic solar system model.
But he has no complaints about this matter. After all, the development of science always has to look forward.
Seeing the words Cavendish Laboratory printed on the envelope, Bohr became even more convinced that this letter also came from his teacher Rutherford.
It seemed that he was worthy of being Rutherford's favorite student, so he could be so concerned about him, and Bohr felt a sense of pride in his heart.
But after opening the envelope, he realized his error in judgment.
Firstly, because the teacher would never use a typewriter to write a letter to himself, and secondly, because the letter paper did not have the holes burned by the ash that fell from the pipe when writing.
"Dear Professor Bohr:
"Please forgive me for taking the liberty of writing this letter to you.
“Although our academic exchanges were not friendly in the past few times, I believe that this time, you and I should be in the same camp.
"Enclosed is a copy of the paper I submitted to the journal "Annals of Physics", hoping to get your advice.
"I wish you all the best, Chen Muwu."
Chen Muwu?
Why would he write to me?
This letter was quite sincere in terms of wording and sentence construction, but Bohr didn't know why Chen Muwu, who not only had no interaction with him but even had some conflicts with him, sent him a paper.
Full of suspicion, Bohr peeled off the thin piece of letter paper covering the surface, revealing several thin pages of papers underneath.
As if to have a bad taste, Chen Muwu traveled through time and had not written a few papers yet, but he liked to write the names of famous contemporary physicists in the titles of papers.
It was just a matter of writing the name of the physicist, but not only that, he also sent these papers to the physicist in question.
There was Einstein's gravitational field equation and Planck's radiation law before, but now there is a third victim.
"A Theoretical Explanation of the Orbital Assumption and Stationary State Assumption in Bohr's Atomic Model".
Seeing this title, Bohr seemed to understand why Chen Muwu sent this paper to him.
As Rutherford said in his previous letter, Bohr improved on the atomic model of the solar system proposed by his teacher in 1913 and proposed a new atomic model named after him.
According to the classical electromagnetic theory, when extranuclear electrons move in a circle around the nucleus, they will continuously radiate electromagnetic waves outward. As the energy decreases, the running speed decreases, and the orbit radius also decreases until it finally lands on the nucleus.
This means that atoms cannot exist stably, and the spectrum radiated outward should also be continuous.
But in fact, the atomic structure is very stable, and the spectrum radiated outward is not continuous but discrete.
Bohr put forward three hypotheses in his model, namely the stationary hypothesis, the orbit hypothesis and the transition hypothesis, which basically solved the contradiction between facts and theories. With this contribution, he won the Nobel Prize in 1922. Physics Prize.
It is called a hypothesis because there is no strong theoretical support.
Bohr could not find out the difference between the classical theory and the factual phenomenon. He could only use the corresponding principle he proposed to get through. That is, the micro and macro worlds each abide by their own laws, but when the micro world is extended to the macro world, , the results obtained by the two laws should be consistent.
So when he saw the title of the paper sent by Chen Muwu, Bohr's eyes immediately lit up.
I wonder what kind of explanation Einstein would give to his atomic model this time, as he was highly recommended by Einstein on the tram not long ago.
So Bohr temporarily ignored the unpleasantness that had happened between him and Chen Muwu, and concentrated on reading the paper.
"According to the wave-particle duality theory of photons, the momentum of photons is..."
Bohr still had some grudges when he saw the word photon.
But now various experimental phenomena have irrefutably proved that light occasionally exhibits particle properties and occasionally exhibits wave properties, so he can only swallow his anger.
"If this wave-particle duality is extended to all particles, taking electrons as an example, an electron with momentum p, its corresponding wavelength should be..."
After reading this, Bohr felt that his three views were shattered to the ground, and even the pipe in his mouth almost fell to the desk.
How can an electron be a wave?
His first reaction was exactly the same as that of his teacher Rutherford.
But this time, Bohr did not call his assistant rashly.
Of course, since Kramers left overnight, he now had no assistant, so he had to hold his nose and continue reading the paper.
"Considering that electrons form standing waves in atomic orbits that do not radiate energy... we can get the stationary hypothesis...
“Bringing Equation 1 into Equation 2…
“And the angular momentum of an electron is just the product of momentum and orbital radius…
"This is the momentum quantization condition in the orbital hypothesis of Bohr's atomic model.
"QED."
The current QED only represents the end of the proof and does not have the meaning of quantum electrodynamics (Quantum Electrodynamics).
Chen Muwu's paper is very short, but very shocking.
Bohr never thought that the stationary hypothesis and orbital hypothesis that he could not figure out even after thinking hard were easily deduced by Chen Muwu using a few extremely simple formulas.
However, is the premise that "electrons are also a wave" put forward in Chen Muwu's paper correct?
Bohr fell into deep thinking.
He is now in a dilemma. If he declares that the atomic model he proposed has found a reasonable explanation, he must also admit the seemingly absurd conclusion that "electrons are a wave."
On the night he received the letter, Bohr did not go home. Instead, he stayed in his office and stared at the formulas on the paper in front of him all night.
The tobacco in the pipe was burned out again and again and refilled again and again.
When Dongfang was white, he finally made a conclusion in his heart.
Physics should be such a beautiful and concise science. Since electrons are regarded as a wave, several assumptions in the hydrogen atom model can be perfectly explained.
So why can't electrons be a wave?
Bohr, who was in high spirits again, picked up his pen and wrote a reply to Chen Muwu.
"Dear Chen:
"I'm glad to hear from you and glad that you shared this paper with me as soon as it was completed.
"To be honest, I was surprised when I first saw this new idea in your paper, but after seeing that this idea can successfully and perfectly explain some of the assumptions I made in the atomic model, I have to admit , I was deeply impressed by your point of view, and decided to accept the point of view that 'electrons may be a wave'.
"I am very inspired by your letter, but there is still a problem standing in front of this theory, and that is how to prove that electrons are also a wave? As long as this view can be proven to be correct, then my atomic theory Basically, you can get the final perfection.
"In addition, I am very curious, that is, how do you get so many innovative ideas in all aspects of physics? I hope you can give me some advice.
“My highest respect to you!
"An old friend you have never met, Niels Bohr."
Thank you all for your monthly rewards and recommendation tickets, thank you for your support!
(End of chapter)
