382,850 views
7 votes
7 votes
Why was the early 20th
century model of the atom
flawed

User Dreampulse
by
2.5k points

1 Answer

14 votes
14 votes
I’ll assume you mean Rutherford’s model: the nuclear model. The nuclear model suggested there was a small tiny positive nucleus in the centre of an atom and delocalised electrons were in a cloud around it. That couldn’t be true because if the electrons were in a cloud around the positive nucleus, they would attract and the atom would collapse in on itself. So in 1913 Niels Bohr suggested that electrons orbit the nucleus in fixed positions, shells.
User Dave Winer
by
2.6k points
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