Sorry, been a while since high school. Can someone please explain why this model is incorrect, and why they teach it in high school if it’s incorrect?
In: Chemistry
I’m not sure if it’s considered wrong per se, but it’s too simplified. It includes the idea that electrons exists at different energy levels, but kind if just puts them in concentric circles around the nucleus. Better models include specific orbitals that better describe electron location which helps explains some bonding properties
The Bohr model is taught in school for the same reason Newton’s laws are taught instead of Einstein’s. Sure, they’re inaccurate, and paint a woefully incomplete picture of the world we live in, but, crucially, they’re easy to understand and fulfill their purpose neatly.
The B-R model is simply far too oversimplified to be accurate, as is the case of many physics and chemistry concepts. That model implies that every pair of electrons orbits neatly in a predefined shell. In reality, electrons move within “electron clouds” which is a general area we believe electrons are likely to be at any given time. However, electrons move so fast and so erratically that they practically have no position at all. Obviously they are there but we can never say with any certainty where any electron exists at any point in time.
It is incorrect because it says the electrons are in certain shells and orbit the nucleus in these orbits.
According to quantum mechanics, we don’t the position that accurate. The shells are actually the highest probability to find the electron but we are not sure if they are there.
the model is taught because it describes most “everyday” processes well.
but it is incorrect when you go to some extremes/into details, because for starters the particles themselves aren’t “neat little balls” but quantum mechanical “probability clouds”, but that just simply doesnt matter because if looked at “from far enough away” they behave exactly the same, so you can teach students the easy way first.
in physics/math you often have terms like y= 3x+ 0.000001 * x^5
if you look at values for x between 0 and 1 then that last part is so insignificant and small it can just be ignored and the whole thing becomes MUCH easier. it wont lead you to the “correct” result but does ist really matter if the result for x = 0.5 is 1.5 or 1.5000000000000000000000000001 (not the actual number)? usually it doesnt
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