Abstract
That each element displays a characteristic spectrum was first pointed out by Kirchhoff in 1859. It was not until thirty years later that the law governing the distribution of lines in a spectrum was discovered by Balmer and Rydberg. The interpretation of this law in terms of atomic structure began with the work of Bohr in 1913. It revealed that a study of spectra could provide a wealth of information about atomic structure. Hydrogen, being the simplest atom, has the simplest spectrum. The study of this spectrum has provided a key to the interpretation of many of the spectra of more complex atoms.
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© 1979 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Littlefield, T.A., Thorley, N. (1979). Spectra. In: Atomic and Nuclear Physics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-1470-7_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-1470-7_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-442-30190-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-1470-7
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