On understanding atoms

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Second program in the series, Physics and beyond, designed to trace the origin and development of the central principles and theories of physics with some of the scientists involved in their creation. The series was prepared by Dr. David Peat, NRC, and Dr. Paul Buckley, of Ideas. This is the first of two programs dealing with the emergence of the quantum theory. Concentrating on the difficulties and paradoxes of the first partially successful attempts to understand the properties of atoms, this program traces early developments leading to the Bohr-Sommerfeld formulation of atomic behavior known as the "old quantum theory." The transition from the old to the new quantum theory occurred with the appearance of Heisenberg's paper on matrix mechanics in 1925. The program then examines the paradoxes of the old quantum theory.-