Roman G Sukhorukov
Roman G. Sukhorukov | |
|---|---|
| Residence | Bratsk, Russia |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Known for | A classical theory of atomic structure presented as a continuation of the Bohr–Sommerfeld model |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics, atomic structure, spectroscopy |
Roman G. Sukhorukov (Russian: Роман Георгиевич Сухоруков) is a Russian researcher based in Bratsk, Irkutsk Oblast. With Georgy I Sukhorukov and Edouard G Sukhorukov he is a co-author of a classical theory of atomic structure, offered by its authors as the logical continuation of the Bohr–Sommerfeld theory and tested against the measured ionization potentials and spectral term energies of the elements.
Biography
Very little biographical information about Roman G. Sukhorukov is available in public sources. The contact details published with the authors' 2000 Russian-language article give his residence as Bratsk (postal code 665709). His patronymic, Georgievich ("son of Georgy"), together with the shared surname, the shared city and the joint authorship, indicates that he and Edouard Georgievich Sukhorukov are sons of their co-author Georgy Ivanovich Sukhorukov, the three working together as a family research team. No details of his education, degrees or professional position could be verified.
Scientific work
The theory the three Sukhorukovs put forward begins from an objection to the mathematics of the accepted account of the atom. The three-dimensional Schrödinger equation, they note, cannot be solved in elementary functions even for the hydrogen atom; for atoms with two or more electrons it cannot be solved exactly even by numerical means; and computing the spectral terms of a single complex atom by approximate methods has required hundreds of hours, and in some cases years, of machine time. Their response is that the Bohr–Sommerfeld picture was abandoned prematurely. It was rejected because of the difficulties it met with the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum and with the structure of many-electron atoms, and the authors argue that these can be overcome while retaining Rutherford's planetary model and working entirely within classical physics.
Their central modification concerns how interaction propagates. Interaction travels at the speed of light, and the finiteness of that speed is ascribed to a world medium, an aether. Newton's and Coulomb's laws are then taken to hold exactly only for bodies at rest with respect to this medium; for moving bodies the effectiveness of the interaction depends on their speed relative to it, according to formulae analogous to those of the Doppler effect in optics and acoustics, a general expression being given for the case where both interacting bodies are in motion. This velocity-dependent correction to the Coulomb force between nucleus and electron takes the place of the relativistic mechanics with which Sommerfeld extended Bohr's atom, and in the authors' view it is what allows the orbital model to be applied to complex atoms.
The theory is judged by spectroscopic evidence rather than by formal derivation. Its authors work from the extensive body of measured ionization potentials and term energies in the optical and X-ray regions — values given in the reference literature to eight or ten significant figures. They regard these as the most reliable data available, since they represent the pooled experimental work of atomic spectroscopy as a whole, and they report that results obtained by the methods derived from their theory agree well with them. The claim, in short, is that a closed-form classical scheme can reproduce the same high-precision atomic data that the quantum-mechanical account obtains only through lengthy numerical approximation.
Publications
- Г.И. Сухоруков, Э.Г. Сухоруков, Р.Г. Сухоруков, "Новая теория строения атомов" ("New Theory of Atomic Structure"), Наука и техника (n-t.ru), Bratsk, 22 August 2000. Full text (PDF)
- G.I. Sukhorukov, E.G. Sukhorukov, R.G. Sukhorukov, "New Theory of Atomic Structure", Galilean Electrodynamics vol. 16, no. S2 (Special Issue 2), 2005, pp. 23–26
- Г.И. Сухоруков, Э.Г. Сухоруков, Р.Г. Сухоруков, "Познание реальности методами классической физики" ("Cognition of Reality by the Methods of Classical Physics"), Bratsk
Abstracts
- 2005 - "New Theory of Atomic Structure"
External links
- "Новая теория строения атомов" — Russian-language version of the theory at the Nauka i Tekhnika electronic library
- Galilean Electrodynamics — journal in which the English-language paper appeared