Sponsor Area

Wave Optics

Question
CBSEENPH12038580

If Bohr's quantisation postulate (angular momentum = nh/2π) 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?

Solution
1. Bohr's quantisation postulate is in terms of h. Angular momenta associated with planetary motion are incomparably large relative to h.
2. For example, angular momentum of the earth in its orbital motion is of the order of 10
70 h. In terms of the Bohr's quantisation postulate, this corresponds to a very large value of n (of the order of 1070).
3. For such enormous values of n, the differences in the successive energies and angular momenta of the quantised levels of the Bohr model is so small as compared to the energy levels and angular momenta that one can practically consider as continuous.