The Bohr Staircase

Pasachoff, Jay M.

doi:doi:10.1119/1.1639968

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The Physics Teacher -- January 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 1, pp. 38

The Bohr Staircase

Jay M. Pasachoff

Williams College, Williamstown, MA

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Abstract

References (12)

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The attempt to bring students to critical thinking about topics in contemporary astronomy is a goal shared by many teachers. Since the rise of astrophysics in the early 20th century, spectroscopy has been the defining technique. Various techniques have been tried to give students a concrete understanding of emission lines and absorption lines in the hydrogen spectrum.¹ Spectroscopy of hydrogen plays an important part of most textbooks in elementary astronomy.² After years of jumping off lecture-room steps and trying (but never succeeding) in hovering between stair levels, I still find too many students drawing equally spaced hydrogen energy levels on exams. I thus arranged for carpenters to build a five-step staircase with the spacing matching that of the actual hydrogen energy levels. I can now use the staircase to demonstrate the Bohr atom³ in a memorable manner. “Bohr staircase” is therefore a suitable name for it. If a teacher wants to stress the visible spectrum rather than the energy levels, “Balmer staircase” is an alternate name.

KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

atoms, spectroscopy, physics education, educational aids, teaching, astronomy, hydrogen neutral atoms, electronic structure, energy states, simulation, helium neutral molecules

PACS

01.50.My

Demonstration experiments and apparatus
95.30.Ky

Atomic and molecular data, spectra, and spectral parameters (opacities, rotation constants, line identification, oscillator strengths, gf values, transition probabilities, etc.)
01.50.F-

Audio and visual aids
32.30.Jc

Visible and ultraviolet spectra