What are the advantages and disadvantages to both Atomic Orbital Diagrams and Bohr Diagrams?

Question

My midterm is in 7 hours and I cant find the answer anywhere in my book! Please help... any is appreciated.

Answer 1

The Bohr model shows electron orbits around the nucleus like planets around the sun. Atomic orbital diagrams do something different. They deal with the fact that Heisenburg's uncertainty principle holds and that we can only provide a region (the electron cloud) where the electron is likely to be found.

Bohr's model help us to understand the importance of energy levels and how excitation/relaxation works. Atomic orbital diagrams give a time exposure of what electron levels 'really' look like in relation to the whole atom.

However, both are only imaginary. For the Bohr model we know it is over simplified. Electrons don't really have circular orbits around the nucleus. For the Atomic Orbital electron gloud it is imaginary picture of the electron as it change position rapidly over time. It does not mean that an electron is a diffuse cloud of charge. It also doesn't illustrate that electron density decrease with distance from the nucleu s along a line. There is ever the slight chance the electron may be found outside of the orbital.

Hope that helps, it should be enough for the exam. Best of luck.

Answer 2

Drawbacks Of Bohr Model

Answer 3

Also, cloud model does not take into consideration the appearance of quarks inside protons and neutrons.