Correspondence principle
Principio de correspondencia
- Date
- 1920 · confidence high
- Place
- Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Credited to
- Niels Bohr
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Bohr stated that quantum theory's predictions must match those of classical physics in the limit of large quantum numbers or high energies, serving as a bridge between the two descriptions of the atom.
Bohr developed the idea from his 1913 atomic model, but coined the term "correspondence principle" in a 1920 lecture.
What it led to
- Heisenberg's matrix mechanics
- Dirac's canonical quantisation (Poisson brackets and commutators)
- Bohr-Kramers-Slater theory (1924), later disproved