Atomic Models Project

Built by Alexander Cai 2021-05-28 for a Physics IB Higher Level project on the history of atomic models.

Built with:

• Vanilla JavaScript
• Vanilla Webpack
• tween.js for transitions
• three.js, which is built on WebGL, for 3D visualization
  • See the documentation for GLTFLoader, PerspectiveCamera, and OrbitControls for more info
• Tinkercad for building 3D models

Equations for the electron models are taken from class notes.

Code overview

Each of the seven files in /src/slides describes a different atomic model. Each one has a default export that is a function that constructs and returns a three.js Group that visualizes that atomic model.

These are imported in /src/slides/index.js, which also contains the text data for all of the models and handles the transitions between slides.

/src/index.js and /src/scene.js initialize the three.js scene, camera, and the camera controls. /src/util.js contains some math utilities and also the functions for describing the electron probability densities in the Schroedinger model.

Note that the current version of the develop branch will build fine locally but not when deployed to GitHub pages because of idiosyncrasies with file paths that I couldn't be bothered to fix.