Erwin Schrodinger
8/12/1887 - 1/4/1961
Schrodingers Life leading up to The atomic model theory
Between 1920 and 1926 Schrodinger took a huge leap in the physiological feild of study. Before we go into this though, lets take a step back. From 1906 to 1910 he was a student at the University of Vienna where he studied under some of the greatest impacts on his future studies and success such as Fritz Hasenöhrl. Now back to 1920-1926, in this time period he became very interested in writing about things such as specific heats of solids, thermodynamics and a wave equation which was included at the end of his greatest epoch written in the later half of 1926. He studied under many great influentual scientists such as Planck and was offered at perminent position at Princeton later in his life which he turned down. He moved around alot within the last years of his life taking up a couple different teaching positions and was still able to continue his work and publishing it. Schrodinger didn't except the dual discription of waves and particles; therefore he tried to create his only theory based soley on waves. He is the last scientist known to study this field, and the only one so far to have a theory focusing only on waves.
The atomic model theory
In order to form his theory he combined two equations. One equation is known as the behavior of waves and the of is known as de Broglie equation. Combing these two eqautions allowed him to create a mathematical model for "the distribution of electrons in an atom." These mathematical equations are known as wave functions and they are what makes this equation understandable and plausable. Unfortunetly for Schrodinger it is hard for many people to imagine electrons in the form of waves even on a model. In his model he tries to find a way to explain where these electrons are found in space and or orbitals. This model; according to the Purdue website provided below, no longer tells us where the electron is, only where it might be.