The Quantum in Atomic Astronomy

Abstract

THE approach to the quantum by the path of energy, though historically natural and probably inevitable, is scarcely the simplest mode of presenting it to students. So long as assumptions or guesses have to be made, as a supplement to ordinary dynamics when applied to events occurring in the interior of an atom, it is best to make them nakedly, so as not to cloak their character; and then to let experience justify them, and hope for subsequent theory to explain them. This is a procedure after the manner of Kepler. The following brief summary, though inadequate as an exposition, is sufficient to indicate the main points in what I imagine to be a slightly clarified mode of presentation.