Wave-particle duality
Wave-particle (or particle-wave) duality refers to the double nature of light and matter at the quantum level. Template:TOC-right The debate arguably began in the 17th century with the competing theories of Christiaan Huygens and Issac 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 of electrons, atoms and molecules. Thomas Young's double-slit experiment in 1803[1] gave overwhelming evidence that light has wave characteristics. The Compton effect established by Arthur Compton in 1922 established the particle nature of light - photons - from the DeBroglie hypothesis.
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