| Ondes et mouvements | |
| 1926 | |
| Louis Victor Duc de Broglie(1892-1987) | |
|
In 1905, Einstein proposed the idea of light quantum and gave corpuscular properties to light known as waves which were verified experimentally by Compton in 1923. When these dual properties of light were accepted, de Broglie concluded that if particles and waves are essentially identical, these conflicting properties could be explained with one common principle. In the above paper, Broglie proposed a daring theory, which endowed particles inversely with properties of waves. He adapted Einstein’s formula of relation between kinetic energy and momentum in special relative theory to Planck’s formula dealing with the relation between radiant energy and frequency using Planck’s constant. He demonstrated that all particles in motion such as electrons are phase waves in which wave length is inversely proportional to momentum, and thus alternately depends upon the mass and velocity of the particle. These non-electromagnetic waves were called matter-waves. De Broglie’s theory on the existence of matter-waves was experimentally confirmed from 1927-28, by Davisson, Thomson and Kikuchi through experimentation employing diffraction of the electron-wave with crystals. De Broglie was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1929 for this discovery. De Broglie’s second paper the Untersuchungen zur Quantentheorie is the first German translation of de Broglie’s doctoral dissertation, Recherches sur la theorie des quanta in 1924, which is headed with a preface describing the intervening years as especially fruitful in developing new physical theories, methods of dynamics and theories of waves at a rapid pace. |
