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Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society

Louis Victor Pierre Raymond De Broglie, 15 August 1892 - 19 March 1987

Anatole Abragam

Published Dec 31, 1988• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Louis, Due de Broglie, the French physicist born in Dieppe on 15 August 1892, made one of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century: the wavelike nature of all matter. His formula λ = (h/p ) stands on a par with Planck’s E = hv and Einstain's E=mc2.
DOI
10.1098/rsbm.1988.0002

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Whatever was going to replace classical physics in the description of radiation and atomic phenomena had to confront the difficult task of somehow reconciling the wave-like and particle-like aspects of light in a single structure. An important clue would come from Einstein’s E=mc2. We tend to want to associate mass (and linear momentum) with material particles. But the Planck–Einstein relation E=hν connects energy with frequency, a determinedly wave-like property. So, here are two very simple yet fundamental equations connecting energy to mass and energy to frequency. Can they be combined? Louis de Broglie thought so, and in 1923 he generalized the discovery made by Einstein in 1905 by extending it to all material particles, and most notably to electrons. The de Broglie relation λ=h/p can be derived quite straightforwardly by comparing the Lorentz transformations for energy and momentum with those for a system of plane waves.
Louis-Victor de Broglie secured his place in the history of quantum physics by proposing the existence of matter waves. Following the concept accepted early in the twentieth century that light waves could display properties characteristic of particles (photons), de Broglie suggested the complementary principle that particles could display properties characteristic of waves. Within a few years, this far-reaching proposal was experimentally verified. The well-known formula for the wavelength λ of the wave associated with a particle of momentum p, namely λ=h/p, does not appear in de Broglie’s original paper, which was published in this journal in 1924. What is derived from the starting assumption that the frequency of the wave is the rest energy of the particle divided by Planck’s constant h, is the wave's velocity, which turns out to be c2/v, where v is the particle’s velocity. This velocity, being superluminal, means that the wave cannot transport energy. De Broglie called it a phase wave and postulated a group of such waves having virtually, but not exactly, the same velocity and wavelength. The group velocity of such a large number of almost identical phase waves is then shown, very satisfactorily, to be equal to the velocity of the particle. The proposal by de Broglie inspired Schrödinger to develop the mathematical foundations of wave mechanics. Whereas in conventional quantum theory, phase waves are considered fictional, de Broglie considered them to have a certain physical reality, renaming them pilot or guiding waves – a concept developed later by Bohm in 1952.
In 1923 Louis de Broglie (1892-1987) discovered the material waves and six years later received the Nobel price for this discovery. Apart these well known facts this French physicist nevertheless seems to be forgotten. Details of his life are as unknown as his efforts to describe quantum mechanics in a deterministic and objective way. Especially the actual discussion concerning the interpretation of quantum mechanics seems to justify a deeper occupation with the scientific work of Louis de Broglie. In this context the important influence of Albert Einstein is of special interest; for his photons announce the existence of material waves and it may surprise that Einstein himself did not postulate them. The basis of this short scientific biography are the publications of de Broglie (a complete bibliography is given at the end), some more or less short memories of his students and some unpublished documents found in the "Archives de l'Academie des Sciences" at Paris. The original text of the correspondence between de Broglie and Einstein is enclosed in German translation in the appendix.
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.