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Re: [Phys-L] the Bohr atom, or not



I should add that in my early career as an experimental particle (oops,
field) physicist, it was very common for mature physicists to fall back on
the Bohr model as a handy way of getting at some aspects of atoms in a
simple and appealing way. For example, one of the things I worked on as a
graduate student was "mu-mesic x-rays", the radiation emitted by atoms in
which all the electrons had been replaced by a single negative muon. Back
of the envelope calculations often involved the Bohr model to make it easy
to estimate energy levels of these exotic one-lepton "Bohr atoms". The Bohr
model plays a role in that community comparable to the simple (and of
course inadequate) ball-and-spring model of solids in condensed matter
physics.

All models are inadequate; some are more inadequate than others. I'm not
sure it makes sense to denigrate models that working physicists use
productively.

Bruce