History
Arnold Sommerfeld introduced the fine-structure constant in 1916, as part of his theory of the relativistic deviations of atomic spectral lines from the predictions of the Bohr model. The first physical interpretation of the fine-structure constant α was as the ratio of the velocity of the electron in the first circular orbit of the relativistic Bohr atom to the speed of light in the vacuum. Equivalently, it was the quotient between the maximum angular momentum allowed by relativity for a closed orbit, and the minimum angular momentum allowed for it by quantum mechanics. It appears naturally in Sommerfeld's analysis, and determines the size of the splitting or fine-structure of the hydrogenic spectral lines.
The fine-structure constant so intrigued physicist Wolfgang Pauli that he collaborated with psychiatrist Carl Jung in an extraordinary quest to understand its significance.
Read more about this topic: Fine-structure Constant
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I feel as tall as you.”
—Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 14, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)