The Hydrogen Atom: The Rutherford Model

Ervin B. Podgoršak

Hermann Haken, Hans Christoph Wolf

Randell L Mills

Henry Zatzkis

The historical development leading up to the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom is briefly surveyed. The atomic model, suggested by J. J. Thomson before Rutherford's model, is investigated. The quantization shows that the bound states bear a marked resemblance to those of the hydrogen atom. However, the states are in general nondegenerate. Thus, the Thomson atom could not have survived the spectroscopic evidence even if no Rutherford scattering experiments had been performed.