Wave-particle duality: matter waves
Dualidad onda-partícula: ondas de materia
- Date
- 1924 · confidence high
- Place
- University of Paris (Sorbonne), France
- Credited to
- Louis de Broglie
- People
- 👤 Louis de Broglie1892–1987
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
If light behaves like a particle, every particle must have an associated wave of wavelength h/p. It explains Bohr's orbits as standing waves and leads directly to the Schrödinger equation.
Doctoral thesis defended in November 1924; Einstein endorsed it, and Nobel Prize in 1929.
What it led to
- Schrödinger equation
- Electron diffraction (Davisson-Germer, 1927)
- Electron microscope
- Interferometry of atoms and molecules
Built on
- Bohr model of the atom1913
- Compton effect1923
- Einstein's photon
- Bohr model
- Hamilton's optical-mechanical analogy
Made possible
- Electron microscope1931–1933
- Neutron diffraction
- Atom interferometers