The atom model of Niels Bohr is commonly considered as antiquated even if it describes the atomic spectrum of hydrogen quite accurately. The later published relation of Louis De Broglie could arithmetically be implemented into Bohr’s formulation, leading to the concept of standing waves as the existence cause of excited electron states. However, at that time it was not possible to find well defined electron trajectories being classically describable. As a consequence, the »quantum mechanics« were developed by several authors, particularly by Schrodinger and by Heisenberg, but delivering a hardly under¬standable formalism where the classical physical laws appear being abrogated while abstract terms replace concrete and imaginable ones, abandoning the particle perception of mass points. In particular, Heisenberg’s »uncertainty principle« and the assumption of state probabilities seem to be in a striking variance to the idea of standing waves. In contrast, a formulation is given here which exactly describes the electron trajectories in the exited states solely by applying classical physical laws. Firstly, the original Bohr-model - in combination with De Broglie’s relation - is rolled up. From this formula system a vibration frequency - corresponding to the De-Broglie frequency – is deduced which is n-times larger than the rotation frequency of the Bohr-model. Furthermore, a direct coherence between that vibration-frequency of the electron and the frequency of the involved light is evident being explainable as a resonance effect. Then, a three-dimensional model is proposed where the electron oscillates and pulses perpendicularly to a virtual rotation plane i.e. rotating around a vertical axis, accompanied by a perpetual energy exchange between potential and kinetic energy. This leads at the excited, metastable energy states to well-defined, three-dimensional and wavy trajectories winding up on a surface similar to the one of a hyperboloid, whereas at the ground state the trajectory is planar and stable.
The atom model of Niels Bohr is commonly considered as antiquated even if it describes the atomic spectrum of hydrogen quite accurately. The later published relation of Louis De Broglie could arithmetically be implemented into Bohr’s formulation, leading to the concept of standing waves as the existence cause of excited electron states. However, at that time it was not possible to find well defined electron trajectories being classically describable. As a consequence, the »quantum mechanics« were developed by several authors, particularly by Schrodinger and by Heisenberg, but delivering a hardly under¬standable formalism where the classical physical laws appear being abrogated while abstract terms replace concrete and imaginable ones, abandoning the particle perception of mass points. In particular, Heisenberg’s »uncertainty principle« and the assumption of state probabilities seem to be in a striking variance to the idea of standing waves. In contrast, a formulation is given here which exactly describes the electron trajectories in the exited states solely by applying classical physical laws. Firstly, the original Bohr-model - in combination with De Broglie’s relation - is rolled up. From this formula system a vibration frequency - corresponding to the De-Broglie frequency – is deduced which is n-times larger than the rotation frequency of the Bohr-model. Furthermore, a direct coherence between that vibration-frequency of the electron and the frequency of the involved light is evident being explainable as a resonance effect. Then, a three-dimensional model is proposed where the electron oscillates and pulses perpendicularly to a virtual rotation plane i.e. rotating around a vertical axis, accompanied by a perpetual energy exchange between potential and kinetic energy. This leads at the excited, metastable energy states to well-defined, three-dimensional and wavy trajectories winding up on a surface similar to the one of a hyperboloid, whereas at the ground state the trajectory is planar and stable.
The original intention of the author’s preoccupation with the quantum-mechanical behaviour of simple atoms and molecules such as Hydrogen and Helium was, on the one hand, the elegant simplicity of Niels Bohr’s atom model for Hydrogen, describing the metastable states of the excited electrons by planar concentric electron orbits, and, on the other hand, the hardly intelligible wave mechanical approach of Heisenberg, Schrödinger and others, describing mainly atoms with multiple electrons by three-dimensional orbitals which were characterized by probabilities of presence. Thereby the question arose whether it would be possible to find alternative atom models with well-defined electron trajectories. Therein, Louis de Broglie’s thesis of the wavy nature of electron motion implicating standing waves would have to be implemented. Nevertheless, as reviewed in the introduction, the orthodox three-dimensional concept influenced the own thinking in such a way that three-dimensional constellations for the electronic excited states were conceived. The break-through was achieved for the electronic ground state in the form of the spin-orbit coupling where the spin acts as a perpetuum mobile, inducing the orbital angular momentum h/2π. Furthermore, the insight was gained that a circularly rotating electron intrinsically corresponds to a harmonic oscillator, thus fulfilling the condition of a standing wave. Based on this concept, a double planar model was established for the H2-molecule which could be empirically verified by X-ray data from literature. However, for the two electrons containing Helium a 2D-array seemed impossible since the Pauli-principle seemed to be violated. After a long stepwise succession of 3D-attempts which turned out to be impossible—not least since eccentric forces are not possible in such a system—the here presented 2D-version for Helium was found, composed by two imaginary orthogonal electron orbits. It will enable in a subsequent publication the quantum mechanical interpretation of the thermal-radiative behaviour of Helium which was reported in the author’s publication nine years ago.
The present approach is an advancement of the author’s former attempts to develop an atom model of Helium with well-defined electron trajectories. Thus it calls in question the traditional quantum mechanics which assume—in contrast and as a consequence of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle—electronic probabilities of presence. Its basic idea consists of the assumption that the motions of the two electrons are influenced by their spins exhibiting the value h/2π, but in two different ways: on the one hand, one spin induces a rotation; and on the other hand, the other spin induces a harmonic oscillation. A second important relation is given by the fact that the retroactive force of the oscillation process is due to the centrifugal force when the process runs along the surface of a sphere, whereas in usual oscillation processes—such as the one of a spring pendulum—it is due to a permanent shift between potential and kinetic energy. Therefore, in the present case, the potential energy remains constant since the distance between the nucleus and the—diametrically positioned—electrons remains constant. Considering these two conditions and the usual physical relations such as Coulomb attraction, centrifugal force, and the conservation laws of the angular momentum and of the energy, it was possible to compute the respective key values. Thereby, the deflection of the oscillation angle ψ = 45˚ is remarkable. Finally, the process is described using a Cartesian coordinate system with z as the rotation axis, a variable oscillation distance d and variable rotation velocities rrot. Thereby, the projections onto the x-axis and on the y-axis are not identically equal, leading to an elliptic projection shape. Thus this system is anisotropic, in contrast to the isotropic array of the conventional quantum mechanics according to Schrödinger, where the 1s-orbital is spherically symmetrical. This anisotropy explains the existence of interatomic Van der Waals forces, which enable the condensation of Helium, even though the condensation temperature is very low. But in particular, it exhibits well-defined electron waves, thus finally delivering the explanation of the hypothesis of Louis de Broglie, which has been established 100 years ago.
This paper presents a geometric and wave interpretation of energy quantization in the hydrogen atom, based on the de Broglie closure condition of the electron wave in a circular orbit. In this concept, energy quantization is a secondary phenomenon resulting from the fact that the electron wave in each orbit consists of exactly n full periods, and the transition to level n+1 corresponds to the addition of one full period. Combining the wave condition with the classical equilibrium of the Coulomb and centripetal forces leads to values of the orbital radii and a discrete energy spectrum consistent with solutions of the Schrödinger equation for the hydrogen atom. It is shown that energy quantization can be interpreted as a consequence of the resonant nature of the electron's wave nature and the condition of phase uniqueness after a complete orbit around the nucleus.1 The model under consideration is semiclassical in nature and serves as an intuitive representation of known results from quantum mechanics. It is assumed that the allowable states correspond to configurations in which the de Broglie wave forms a standing wave containing an integer number of full periods around the orbital circumference. This condition leads directly to the quantization of angular momentum according to the Bohr model. The waveband model provides a one-dimensional analogy of the full quantum description and can serve as a teaching tool to facilitate understanding the geometric aspects of energy quantization in the hydrogen atom. It demonstrates that energy quantization is a natural consequence of the standing wave geometry and the addition of successive full periods along the orbit as the system transitions to the next energy eigenstate after activation. The electron is a stable eigenstate of a quantum field whose behavior in bound systems can be geometrically interpreted as the self-resonance of a de Broglie wave satisfying the condition of single-valent phase, rather than as a local particle with a classical trajectory. Self-resonance of a wave means that the condition of single-valent phase of the wave function after a complete orbit around the nucleus is satisfied, i.e., the requirement that the phase change be an integer multiple of 2π; this is equivalent to the Bohr–de Broglie condition for the closure of the de Broglie wave.
This paper proposes a dynamical interpretation of the de Broglie wave in which the electron alternates between relatively localized and relatively delocalized propagation phases. The electron's rest mass is treated throughout as a conserved invariant. The proposal does not involve rest mass conversion. What may oscillate is the spatial configuration of the electron's quantized energy states — the way energy organizes itself around the fixed core — not the core itself. The proposal is motivated by a numerical observation: the orbital frequency and the de Broglie frequency of the electron in the hydrogen ground state are exactly equal, computed independently from classical mechanics and quantum wave theory. The equality itself is not new. What is proposed is its physical meaning: one complete localization–delocalization cycle occurs per orbital period. The interpretation is consistent with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the Schrödinger equation. Several observations from established physics are discussed as consistent with the proposed framework. The proposal is presented as an interpretive extension of standard quantum mechanics, not a replacement.
Bohr ignored the electromagnetic interaction of moving charges in atoms and only considered Coulomb forces, thus encountering half frequency difficulties. This article considers the Lorentz force to make the classical Bohr model consistent with modern quantum theory, uses de Broglie's standing wave principle instead of Bohr's quantization assumption, derives the energy level formula for hydrogen atoms, and explains the radiation mechanism of hydrogen atomic spectra. The hydrogen atom in a spectral tube emits a photon wave train during one free path, and the wavelength of the photon is the eigen wavelength of its wave train. The head wavelength of the wave train is four thirds of its eigen wavelength, and the tail wavelength of the wave train is two-thirds of its eigen wavelength.
Louis-Victor de Broglie secured his place in the history of quantum physics by proposing the existence of matter waves. Following the concept accepted early in the twentieth century that light waves could display properties characteristic of particles (photons), de Broglie suggested the complementary principle that particles could display properties characteristic of waves. Within a few years, this far-reaching proposal was experimentally verified. The well-known formula for the wavelength λ of the wave associated with a particle of momentum p, namely λ=h/p, does not appear in de Broglie’s original paper, which was published in this journal in 1924. What is derived from the starting assumption that the frequency of the wave is the rest energy of the particle divided by Planck’s constant h, is the wave's velocity, which turns out to be c2/v, where v is the particle’s velocity. This velocity, being superluminal, means that the wave cannot transport energy. De Broglie called it a phase wave and postulated a group of such waves having virtually, but not exactly, the same velocity and wavelength. The group velocity of such a large number of almost identical phase waves is then shown, very satisfactorily, to be equal to the velocity of the particle. The proposal by de Broglie inspired Schrödinger to develop the mathematical foundations of wave mechanics. Whereas in conventional quantum theory, phase waves are considered fictional, de Broglie considered them to have a certain physical reality, renaming them pilot or guiding waves – a concept developed later by Bohm in 1952.