ALBERT MICHELSON (1852-1931) EDWARD MORLEY (1838-1923)

1887 – USA

The aim of the experiment was to measure the effect of the Earth’s motion on the speed of light

This celebrated experiment found no evidence of there being an effect.

TIMELINE

 

RELATIVITY

Related articles

• Luminiferous aether (aps.org)
• Power Recycled Michelson (fnal.gov)

HEINRICH RUDOLPH HERTZ (1857- 94)

1888 – Germany

Radio waves can be produced by electric sparks. They have the same speed as light and behave as light

HERTZ

Hertz’s discovery provided the basis of radio broadcasting.

In 1864 MAXWELL‘s equations predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves.
His thinking had shown that electromagnetic waves could be refracted, reflected and polarized in the same way as light. Hertz was able to measure the speed of these waves and to show that the speed is the same as that of light.

Hertz hypothesised that he could experimentally examine the waves by creating apparatus to detect electromagnetic radiation. He devised an electric circuit with a gap that would cause a spark to leap across when the circuit was closed. If Maxwell’s theory was correct and electromagnetic waves were spreading from these oscillator sparks, appropriately sensitive equipment should pick up the waves generated by the spark.
Hence he constructed the equivalent of an antenna.
His simple receiver consisted of two small balls at the ends of a loop of wire, separated by a small gap. This receiver was placed several yards from the oscillator and the electromagnetic waves would induce a current in the loop that would send sparks across the small gap. This was the first transmission and reception of electromagnetic waves. He called the waves detected by the antenna ‘Hertzian waves’.

We are now familiar with all the types of electromagnetic waves that make up the complete electromagnetic spectrum. They all travel with the speed of light and differ from each other in their frequency. We measure this frequency in hertz.

It was left to the Italian electrical engineer GUGLIELMO MARCONI to refine this equipment into a device that had the potential of transmitting a message and to develop technology for the practical use of Hertzian  waves – when they became commonly known as radio waves.

Further experimentation showed that these waves had the properties that Maxwell had predicted.
As well as being important as a newly discovered phenomenon, Hertz’s discovery helped to prove that Maxwell had been correct when he suggested that light and heat were forms of electromagnetic radiation.

Radio waves are electromagnetic waves. Other main kinds of electromagnetic waves are: gamma rays; X-rays; ultra-violet radiation; visible light; infrared radiation and microwaves.

This radiation was behaving in all the ways that would be expected for waves, the nature of the vibration and the susceptibility to reflection and refraction were the same as those of light and heat waves. Hertz found that they could be focused by concave reflectors.

Experimenting further, Hertz spotted that electrical conductors reflect this electromagnetic radiation and that non-conductors allow most of the waves to pass through.

In honour of Hertz’s achievements, the SI unit of frequency, the hertz (Hz), was named after him.

Hertz’s discoveries came at an early age. The German physicist died at the age of thirty-six.

TIMELINE

 

ELECTRICITY

WILHELM CONRAD ROENTGEN (1845-1923)

ROENTGEN

1895 – Germany

X-Rays are high energy radiation given off when fast-moving electrons lose energy very rapidly

TIMELINE

Related sites

• X-ray imaging (mxif.manchester.ac.uk)
• old link (mxif.manchester.ac.uk)

NIELS BOHR (1885-1962)

1913 – Denmark

Electrons in atoms are restricted to certain orbits but they can move from one orbit to another

Bohr’s was the first quantum model for the internal structure of the atom.

Bohr worked with RUTHERFORD in Manchester and improved upon Rutherford’s model, which said that electrons were free to orbit the nucleus at random.

NIELS BOHR

Classical physics insisted that electrons moving around the nucleus would eventually expire and collapse into the nucleus as they radiated energy. Bohr resolved the issue surrounding Rutherford’s atomic structure by applying the concept of quantum physics set out by MAX PLANCK in 1900.
He suggested that the electrons would have to exist in one of a number of specific orbits, each being defined by specific levels of energy. From the perspective of quantum theory, electrons only existed in these fixed orbits where they did not radiate energy. The electrons could move to higher-level orbits if energy was added, or fall to lower ones if they gave out energy. The innermost orbit contains up to two electrons. The next may contain up to eight electrons. If an inner orbit is not full, an electron from an outer orbit can jump into it. Energy is released as light (a photon) when this happens. The energy that is released is a fixed amount, a quantum.

Quanta of radiation would only ever be emitted as an atom made the transition between states and released energy. Electrons could not exist in between these definite steps. This quantised theory of the electrons’ orbits had the benefits of explaining why atoms always emitted or absorbed specific frequencies of electromagnetic radiation and of providing an understanding of why atoms are stable.

Bohr calculated the amount of radiation emitted during these transitions using Planck’s constant. It fitted physical observations and made sense of the spectral lines of a hydrogen atom, observed when the electromagnetic radiation (caused by the vibrations of electrons) of the element was passed through a prism.
The prism breaks it up into spectral lines, which show the intensities and frequencies of the radiation – and therefore the energy emissions and absorptions of the electrons.

Each of the elements has an atomic number, starting with hydrogen, with an atomic number of one. The atomic number corresponds to the number of protons in the element’s atoms. Bohr had already shown that electrons inhabit fixed orbits around the nucleus of the atom.
Atoms strive to have a full outer shell (allowed orbit), which gives a stable structure. They may share, give away or receive extra electrons to achieve stability. The way that atoms will form bonds with others, and the ease with which they will do it, is determined by the configuration of electrons.
As elements are ordered in the periodic table by atomic number, it can be seen that their position in the table can be used to predict how they will react.

In addition to showing that electrons are restricted to orbits, Bohr’s model also suggested that

• the orbit closest to the nucleus is lowest in energy, with successively higher energies for more distant orbits.

 

• when an electron jumps to a lower orbit it emits a photon.

 

• when an electron absorbs energy, it jumps to a higher orbit.

Bohr called the jump to another orbit a quantum leap.

Although it contained elements of quantum theory, the Bohr model had its flaws. It ignored the wave character of the electron. Work by WERNER KARL HEISENBERG later tackled these weaknesses.

Bohr’s theory of complementarity states that electrons may be both a wave and a particle, but that we can only experience them as one or the other at any given time. He showed that contradictory characteristics of an electron could be proved in separate experiments and none of the results can be accepted singly – we need to hold all the possibilities in mind at once. This requires a slight adjustment to the original model of atomic structure, we can no longer say that an electron occupies a particular orbit, but can only give the probability that it is there.

In 1939 he developed a theory of nuclear fission with Jon Archibald Wheeler (b.1911) and realised that the ²³⁵uranium isotope would be more susceptible to fission than the more commonly used ²³⁸uranium.
The element bohrium is named after him.

TIMELINE

 

THE ATOM

 

QUANTUM MECHANICS