DeBroglie's Duality

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DeBroglie's Duality
an enlightening look into the life of a
scientist by Cindy Minnicus
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CM Monsier de Broglie, tell me about your
family, I've heard that your family was nobility
in France. LB Yes, my parents were ancestors
in a long line of Broglie officials. Many
members of my family worked as army officers,
politicians, and even foreign diplomats. My
brother, Maurice, on the other hand, took a
strong interest in physics, and actually set up
his first laboratory in the family mansion.
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CM Was it Maurice's influence that helped you
decide to enter physics? LB Definitely. If it
wasn't for the first taste of science I got from
working and watching Maurice in his labs, I may
have taken my degree in history and entered right
into France's diplomatic fields and not looked
back.
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CM When did you form your first theories on
particle-wave duality? LB I was always
fascinated by theories, so I guess I started
getting ideas even before I started studying for
my degree. If I had to pinpoint a time, I would
say that I started my investigations of quantum
mechanics soon after I was discharged from the
military after the war. That's when I really
began investigating Planck and Einstein's work.
By the end of summer of 1923, it was clear to me
that there was a duality to material products,
especially electrons.
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CM How did you come to this conclusion, despite
what all the other physicists at the time were
saying? LB Actually I used the work of other
physicists to make my conclusion. I found gaps in
both sides of the argument that added up on the
other side. I looked at the works of Einstein
and Planck, and studied the Hamilton-Jacobi
theory and quantum phenomena.
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CM Can you explain what some of these works
said, and how they applied to your theory? LB
The main influence came from Einstein and his
theory of relativity. It related photon's energy
to the speed of light. Einstein also suggested
that light of short wavelengths might under some
conditions be observed to behave as if it were
composed of particles
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CM You said you also studied Planck and quantum
theories. How did they play into your
theory? LB Well, Planck related a photon's
energy to its frequency. The more I compared
Planck and Einstein's work, the more I believed
that matter, like light, could behave as
particles and waves. I took their equations for
energy and converted frequency to wavelength, and
used the two equations to their potential in all
my work.
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CM Now, you also included theories about
standing waves in your writings. Can you explain
those to me? LB Yes, I noticed that if an
electron is confined to its atom, then its energy
and properties must be quantized. The waves
could be compared to guitar strings, in that they
travel in a stationary, up and down motion, thus,
creating motionless nodes. In order to prevent
the wave from canceling itself out, it must fit
perfectly around the center, in an even number of
wavelengths, creating a quantized energy.
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CM When is the first time you announced or
published your theories? LB I delivered my
first thesis titled Recherché sur la Theorie des
Quanta (Researches on the quantum theory) in
1924. It was at Paris University at the Faculty
of Sciences. The thesis was to gain my doctorate
degree, and I discussed all I had discovered and
researched for the two year prior to that thesis.
One of the most thrilling parts was that
Einstein himself chanced to receive that exact
thesis, and became very enthusiastic. Eventually,
after several other published works, the
acceptance of the duality theory became accepted
throughout science studies.
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CM You also received a Nobel Prize for your
research didn't you? LB Yes, it was in 1952
that I received the prize for Physics. It was a
big surprise to me that they had considered my
work with such importance. They attributed me
with the discovery of the electron's wave nature,
saying that I had brought together the two worlds
of atomic research. I, of course, see it as just
being the first to relate the two ideas someone
else would have discovered it sooner or later.
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CM But since you were the first, your
discoveries have lead other scientists to develop
their own ideas based on you work, can you tell
me about some of the new ideas that have come
along after your publications? LB First of
all, in 1927, a couple Americans, Davisson and
Germer along with Thomson from Scotland found
experimental evidence to support the wave nature
of electrons. Another important turning point is
when Erwin Schrodinger constructed a mathematical
equation based on my hypotheses.
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After my interview with this charming and humble
genius, I later found some of the honors that he
was too proud to admit. De Broglie was also an
advisor to the French Atomic Energy Commissariat,
awarded with the Henri Poincare Medal, the Albert
I of Monaco award, and the Kaliga Prize by UNESCO
for his efforts to explain physics to the common
layman. Yet, the nobility of Louis never showed
through as he explained his impact of
wave-particle nature and quantum theories. This
modern Prince of Physics has had a lasting effect
on the ideals of the atom far into today's modern
theories.
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Bibliography    http//www.nobel.se/physics/laure
ates/1929/broglie-bio.html   http//aa.uncwil.edu/
reeves/chm101jr/Dist_F98/wave_particle_duality.htm
  http//www.Britannica.com/bcom.eb.article   htt
p//www-groups.des.st-and.ac.uk/history/Mathemati
cians/broglie.html   http//www.chembio.uoguelph.c
a/educmat/chu386/rudiment/tourquan/broglie.htm   E
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