In pop-science articles and videos, the concept is usually illustrated using the dated but intuitive model developed by Niels Bohr around 1918. The model envisi

In pop-science articles and videos, the concept is usually illustrated using the dated but intuitive model developed by Niels Bohr around 1918. The model envisions electrons that travel around the nucleus in circular orbits: Please stop teaching the history of what we used to think the atom looked like. We’ve reached the point where we spend 99% of the material teaching what we know the atom doesn’t look like and very little on what it does look like. Even this author offers a picture for what it doesn’t look like and nothing for what it does. Physicists should know the value of a good picture/mental model better than anyone else. I challenge you to go on Wikipedia and find the article/space for the current understanding of the atom. Was that hard for you to find? Would a curious high schooler have enough information within that article/space to learn everything you now know (textbooks are too expensive and inaccessible for high schoolers to rely on, physics websites are hit/miss). Is this how you would prefer to have been taught?