I don't know why the claim that "the Bohr model of the atom came around while quantum mechanics was being developed" is such a wild concept to me. Like it made me physically recoil just hearing it

It makes sense if I think about it for more than a second, but for some reason in my brain the Bohr model of the atom is an absolutely ancient thing and quantum mechanics is really modern

I don't know history

Did we really have NO clue what the atom looked like until the 1900s?? That's like yesterday

@socks we have a book about electrical engineering from the 1930s where the very first sentence is "It may seem unreasonable to begin a book dealing with the rapidly growing industry based on the motion of electrons with the statement that no one knows what an electron is, but such is the case." (Electron Tubes in Industry, 2nd edition, by Keith Henney)

-F

@Felthry My brain is in constant conflict between "there is NO way that a book from a hundred years ago could still be relevant" and "a hundred years is essentially nothing, my parents knew people who were alive back then"

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@socks it's a fascinating read because it's all about vacuum tubes, a subject that's not ever talked about in modern engineering classes

also it has a line somewhere about how the cathode ray tube "will likely see increasing adoption in commercial and scientific applications", which is a huge understatement
-F

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