Summary:
- Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885 – 1962) proposed a new model of the atom in 1915.
- Bohr’s work was primarily based on the emission spectra of hydrogen.
- It explained the inner workings of the hydrogen atom.
- The Bohr model postulates that electrons orbit the nucleus at fixed energy levels.
- When the energy is removed, the electrons return back to their ground state, emitting a corresponding amount of energy – a quantum of light, or photon.
- This was the basis for what later became known as quantum theory.