If Bohr `nh/2pi)` is a basic law of nature, it should be equally valid for the case of planetary motion also. Why then do we never speak of quantisation of orbits of planets around the sun?

classically an electron can be in any orbit around nucleus of an atom. Then what determines the typical atomic size? Why is an atom not, say, thousand times bigger than its typical size? Thequestion had greatly puzzled Bohr before he arrived at his famous model of the atom that you have learnt in the text. To simulate what he might well have done before his discovery, let us play as followswith the basic constants of nature e, me, c and see if we can get a quantity with the dimensions of length that is roughly equal to the known size of an atom (~ 10 m).- You will find that the length obtained above is many orders of magnitude smaller than the atomic dimensions. Further, it involves c. But energies of atoms are mostly in non-relativistic domain where c is not expected to play any role. This is what may have suggested Bohr to discard c and look for else h had already made its appearance elsewhere. Bohr lay in recognising that h, m_e , and e will yield the right atomic size. Construct a quantity with the dimension of length from h, me, and e and confirm that its numerical value has indeed the correct order of magnitude.

Classically, an electron can be in any orbit around the nucleus of an atom. Then what determines the typical atomic size? Why is an atom not, say, thousand times bigger than its typical size? The question had greatly puzzled Bohr before he arrived at his famous model of the atom that you have learnt in the text. To simulate what he might well have done before his discovery, let us play as follows with the basic constants of and see if we can get a quantity with the dimensions of length that is roughly equal to the known of an atom (~ 10^ -10 m).- Construct a quantity with the dimensions of length from the fundamental constants e, m_e , and c. Determine its numerical value.