Technology majors when introduced to quantum concepts, invariably encounter difficulties in the understanding of matter waves. Further, de Broglie waves are usually considered to be different from the waves inherent in Schrodinger's equation. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the nature of quantum waves and to pursue the implications of wave-particle duality.
Technology majors when introduced to quantum concepts, invariably encounter difficulties in the understanding of matter waves. Further, de Broglie waves are usually considered to be different from the waves inherent in Schrodinger's equation. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the nature of quantum waves and to pursue the implications of wave-particle duality.
The development of the quantum theory has been on -going for many years.The wave -particle duality has been and is central to debates among physicists, in their endeavor to understand and bring more insight about the quantum theory.In this paper attempts by physicists to clarify the wave -particle duality are discussed.The wave or particle or both state of matter is analyzed, followed by discussion on the criticisms on de Broglie equation.Lastly, the paper concludes that debates on the wave -particle duality will continue since there is no consensus yet among physicists, and that experimental evidence should be given to substantiate claims.
The wave-particle duality of photons, as hypothesized by Einstein, was well accepted by the early 1920's. De Broglie's bold hypothesis in 1924, that all matter likewise has a wave-particle duality added further fuel to the fire in the development of Quantum Mechanics. It seared into the minds of physicists the wave-particle duality of Nature. Needless to say, this counter intuitive and bold assertion mystified the World beyond any sensible comprehension by common sense. The question often asked by ordinary people is what is the matter with de Broglie waves? We provide just this answer and demystify this 'matter' in this short paper.
Following the spirit of de Broglie and Einstein, we think the concepts of matter and radiation can be unified. We know a particle propagates like a wave; its motion is described by certain wave equations. At this point, it is not clear what the wave function represents. Besides the statistical meaning suggested by the Copenhagen interpretation, does the wave function represent any physical motion? For photon, we know it is an electro-magnetic wave. But what about particles with rest mass, such as an electron? To investigate the physical nature of matter wave, we propose that: (1) Like the photon, a particle is an excitation wave of a real physical field. (2) Different types of particles are different excitation modes of the same field. Based on this thinking, we show that the concept of quantum mechanics can be a natural extension of classical mechanics. By critically analyzing the transition from classical physics to quantum physics, we found a new physical meaning for the quantum wave function. This work suggests that various quantum wave equations, including the Klein-Gordon equation, the Dirac equation and the Schrodinger equation, could have a common base relating to the Basic Wave Equation of the matter wave. This work has some interesting implications. It suggests a possible way to explain the origin of visible matters and dark matters in our universe.
Where did we get that [equation] from? Nowhere. It is not possible to derive it from anything you know. It came out of the mind of Schrödinger. Richard Feynman De Broglie's matter waves The early struggles of physicists towards a quantum theory were mostly concerned with attempts to understand the nature of light. The traditional picture of light as a wave motion had been challenged by Planck and Einstein. They had shown that certain experimental results that were impossible to understand in terms of a wave picture could be easily explained if light was thought of as a stream of particles, now called photons. William Bragg, who, with his son, won the 1915 Nobel Prize for studies of crystal structure using X-rays, summarized this dilemma for physics by exclaiming in despair that he was teaching the corpuscular theory of light on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and the undulatory theory on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays! Physicists were still wrestling with these apparently contradictory properties of light when, in 1924, Prince Louis de Broglie (pronounced ‘de Broy’) suggested that all matter, even objects that we usually think of as particles – such as electrons – should also display wavelike behaviour! This revolutionary idea was completely unexpected and, what is more, was included by de Broglie in his Ph. D. thesis. Like most people, physicists are generally reluctant to accept any wild new idea, especially if there is not a shred of evidence to support it.
This is the third of three chapters that apply the concepts of Chapters 1, 2, and 3 to the three principal types of waves: mechanical, electromagnetic, and quantum. Although mechanical waves may be the most obvious in everyday life, and electromagnetic waves may be the most useful to our technological society, a case can be made that quantum waves are the most fundamental. As you'll see in this chapter, every bit of matter in the Universe behaves like a wave under certain circumstances, so it's hard to imagine anything more fundamental. If you're thinking that life in the macroscopic world moves along just fine without considering quantum effects, you should realize that the laws of classical physics are approximations, and all the quantum weirdness described in this chapter blends smoothly with classical physics when they overlap. Much of that weirdness comes from the dual wave and particle nature of matter and energy, and one of the goals of this chapter is to help you understand what's actually doing all this waving. This chapter begins with a comparison of the characteristics of waves and particles in Section 6.1, followed by a discussion of wave–particle duality in Section 6.2. You can read about the Schrödinger equation and probability wavefunctions in Sections 6.3 and 6.4, and quantum wave packets are discussed in Section 6.5. Wave and particle characteristics Before studying modern physics, most students think of particles and waves as belonging to fundamentally different categories of objects. That's understandable, because particles and waves have several very different characteristics, including the way in which they occupy space, the way they travel through openings, and the way they interact with other particles or waves. Here's a summary of some of the differentiating characteristics between particles and waves. Occupying space. Particles exist in a well-defined amount of space; if you could pause time at some instant during a tennis match, all of the spectators would agree on the position of the ball at that instant.
Maxwell matter waves emerge from a perspective, complementary to de Broglie's, that matter is fundamentally a wave phenomenon whose particle aspects are revealed by quantum mechanics. Their quantum mechanical description is derived through the introduction of a matter vector potential, having frequency ω0, to Schrodinger's equation for a massive particle. Maxwell matter waves are then seen to be coherent excitations of a single-mode of the matter-wave field. In the classical regime, their mechanics is captured by a matter analog of Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic field. As such, Maxwell matter waves enable a spectrum of systems that have useful optical analogs, such as resonant matter-wave interferometric sensors and matter-wave parametric oscillators. These waves are associated with a wavelength that is tied to the drive frequency ω0 rather than to the massive particle's energy, as is ordinarily the case with de Broglie matter waves. As a result, simple interferometric measurements lead to different outcomes for the two types of waves. While their apparent departure from de Broglie character is surprising, Maxwell matter waves are wholly consistent with quantum mechanics.