Wave-particle duality
The wave-particle duality (or particle-wave duality) refers to the double nature of light and matter at the quantum level.
The debate arguably began in the 17th century with the competing theories of Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton. Huygen's observations led him to a wave theory of light while Newton's supported a corpuscular or particle theory. Newton's preeminence as the leading mind in related matters led to the domination of his theory.
Light was found to behave as both particle and wave, a characteristic later found to be also true of electrons, atoms and molecules. Thomas Young's double-slit experiment in 1803[1] gave overwhelming evidence that light has wave characteristics. Einstein's work in 1905 on the photoelectic effect postulated that light had particle nature (hence Einstein's naming of the photon as the particle of light); the Compton effect, demonstrated by Arthur Compton in 1922 firmly established the particle nature of light. In 1924 Louis de Broglie hypothesized that matter had wave aspects.
Work following by Davisson and Germer[2] contributed to the establishment of the wave nature of light and Erwin Schrödinger's (1887-1961) wave equation (1926) describing the behaviour or electrons and other particles was built around the use of wave concepts
References
- ↑ reported in his publication Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics
- ↑ Clinton J. Davisson & Lester H. Germer (1927) "Reflection of electrons by a crystal of nickel", Nature, V119, pp. 558-560
- ↑ Wave-Particle Duality Davisson-Germer Experiment Rod Nave, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University
- ↑ Wave-particle duality University of Winnipeg
- ↑ Wave Mechanics Steven S. Wesolowski (1999). Center for Computational Chemistry, University of Georgia, USA
- ↑ The discovery of electron waves Clinton Davisson Nobel lecture, Dec. 13, 1937