SYM·0058 · Bohr model
Atom
a diagram physics abandoned
- Unicode
- U+269B atom symbol
- Meaning
- Science. Not any particular science — the idea of it.
- History
- The mark draws a nucleus circled by electrons on elliptical tracks: the Rutherford–Bohr model of 1911–13. Physics discarded that picture within about a decade, as quantum mechanics replaced definite orbits with probability distributions, and no working physicist has believed in the little tracks since the 1920s. The symbol has outlived its own referent by a century and is still the universal emblem of scientific authority.
- Variants
- Two or three orbital ellipses; nucleus solid or clustered.
- Related
- ☢ Radiation (SYM·0027); the skeuomorph problem in Visual Grammar.
- Appears
- Science education, laboratory branding, nuclear agencies, and the American Atheists’ mark of 1963.
- Evolution
- Superseded physical model → emblem of science → a picture of something nobody thinks is true.
Sources · 3
- documented The Rutherford–Bohr atomic model, 1911–13, and its supersession by quantum mechanics in the 1920s.
- documented The American Atheists’ atomic symbol, adopted 1963.
- documented The Unicode Standard, U+269B ATOM SYMBOL.