Question

Both Rutherford's and Bohr's models have electrons orbiting the nucleus. Why did Rutherford's model fail to explain atomic stability, while Bohr's model succeeded?

Answer 1

In Rutherford's model, an orbiting electron is accelerating and should continuously lose energy, spiral inward, and eventually fall into the nucleus. Bohr proposed that electrons can move only in specific stationary orbits, where they have definite energy and do not lose energy. This explains why atoms remain stable.