Hi,
This is one of the quetsions in the SCH4UA courses offered by
TVontario's Independent Learning Program. Here is a start of an answer for the question by me. I would say that it was Batmers experimentation with hydrogen and specific energy levels analyzed with the spectroscope, revaing bandwidths of colour tied into the energy levels, and wave engths.
"Radiant Energy and Spectra
It has been known for many years that eements gave out specific
eolectromagetic radiation in the form of spectrao lines. These lines
are really an element's fingerprints. Each element gives its own
characteristic line patterns. THe coour playe d II after page 336 in
the textbook illustrates this well.
This spectrum was thhought to be associated with waves, the freqency of
which was governed by the equation
f=c/ h"lambda" (if I remember rightI don't have a lambda key)
Where f = frequnecy
c= the speed of light
lambad = the wavelength
read section 1-8 and 1-9
1-8 is dispersion of visible light
which goes into how electrons position around the nucleus.
"Each atom or array of energy acts as as a prisism that is bands are
absorbed or emited, depending on the 'mater filter' that is the
'objects that the light is passing through. This goes into Newtons
'optics' stuff. The idea of refraction. Thus wavelengths travel at
different velocities through a prism. It goess into the spectrograph
stuff.
1-9 is atomic emission spectra. Each element has it's own spectrum.
Batmer 1884 energized atoms of hydrogen gas and eaminded the visible
radiation with spectorscope he found priminentcoloured lines in the
hydrogen spectrum.
red bleu-green blue violet al thse at different ength from 6.653 x
10-7 to 4.102 x 10-7 (visible light?)
Planck in 1900 through up the quantum theory started the development of
a new atom.. Einstein confirmed this.
in 1913 bohr nailed the coffin shut on the debate.
he electrons in free atoms can will be found in only certain discrete energy states. These sharp energy states are associated with the orbits or shells of electrons in an atom, e.g., a hydrogen atom. One of the implications of these quantized energy states is that only certain photon energies are allowed when electrons jump down from higher levels to lower levels, producing the hydrogen spectrum. The Bohr model successfully predicted the energies for the hydrogen atom, but had significant failures that were corrected by solving the Schrödinger equation for the hydrogen atom.
