Machine learning & AI

Artificial intelligence paves way for new medicines

A team of researchers from LMU, ETH Zurich, and Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) Basel has used artificial intelligence (AI) to develop an innovative method that predicts the optimal method for synthesizing ...

Energy & Green Tech

A potentially cheaper and 'cooler' way to transport hydrogen

In the continued effort to move humanity away from fossil fuels and towards more environmentally friendly energy sources, researchers in Japan have developed a new material capable storing hydrogen energy in a more efficient ...

Energy & Green Tech

Cheap and efficient catalyst could boost renewable energy storage

Storing renewable energy as hydrogen could soon become much easier thanks to a new catalyst based on single atoms of platinum. The new catalyst, designed by researchers at City University Hong Kong (CityU) and tested by colleagues ...

Energy & Green Tech

Q&A: Three things to know about a sustainable energy breakthrough

Sustainable energy generation solutions such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric have long presented enticing alternatives to fossil fuels. However, several factors, including the intermittent nature of these sources and their ...

Energy & Green Tech

German town bids farewell to nuclear, eyes hydrogen future

For 35 years, the Emsland nuclear power plant in northwestern Germany has reliably provided millions of homes with electricity and many with well-paid jobs in what was once an agricultural backwater.

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Hydrogen atom

A hydrogen atom is an atom of the chemical element hydrogen. The electrically neutral atom contains a single positively-charged proton and a single negatively-charged electron bound to the nucleus by the Coulomb force. The most abundant isotope, hydrogen-1, protium, or light hydrogen, contains no neutrons; other isotopes contain one or more neutrons. This article primarily concerns hydrogen-1.

The hydrogen atom has special significance in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory as a simple two-body problem physical system which has yielded many simple analytical solutions in closed-form.

In 1914, Niels Bohr obtained the spectral frequencies of the hydrogen atom after making a number of simplifying assumptions. These assumptions, the cornerstones of the Bohr model, were not fully correct but did yield the correct energy answers. Bohr's results for the frequencies and underlying energy values were confirmed by the full quantum-mechanical analysis which uses the Schrödinger equation, as was shown in 1925/26. The solution to the Schrödinger equation for hydrogen is analytical. From this, the hydrogen energy levels and thus the frequencies of the hydrogen spectral lines can be calculated. The solution of the Schrödinger equation goes much further than the Bohr model however, because it also yields the shape of the electron's wave function ("orbital") for the various possible quantum-mechanical states, thus explaining the anisotropic character of atomic bonds.

The Schrödinger equation also applies to more complicated atoms and molecules. However, in most such cases the solution is not analytical and either computer calculations are necessary or simplifying assumptions must be made.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA