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Physics Today

Arthur Compton and the mysteries of light

Erik A. Henriksen

Published Dec 1, 2022• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

For nearly 20 years, Einstein’s quantum theory of light was disputed on the basis that light was a wave. In 1922 Compton’s x-ray scattering experiment proved light’s dual nature.
DOI
10.1063/pt.3.5139

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The discovery of the Compton effect at the end of 1922 was a decisive event in the transition to the new quantum mechanics of 1925-1926 because it stimulated physicists to examine anew the fundamental problem of the interaction between radiation and matter. I first discuss Albert Einstein's light-quantum hypothesis of 1905 and why physicists greeted it with extreme skepticism, despite Robert A. Millikan's confirmation of Einstein's equation of the photoelectric effect in 1915. I then follow in some detail the experimental and theoretical research program that Arthur Holly Compton pursued between 1916 and 1922 at the University of Minnesota, the Westinghouse Lamp Company, the Cavendish Laboratory, and Washington University that culminated in his discovery of the Compton effect. Surprisingly, Compton was not influenced directly by Einstein's light-quantum hypothesis, in contrast to Peter Debye and H.A. Kramers, who discovered the quantum theory of scattering independently. I close by discussing the most significant response to that discovery, the Bohr-Kramers-Slater theory of 1924, its experimental refutation, and its influence on the emerging new quantum mechanics.
Abstract The discovery of the Compton effect at the end of 1922 was a decisive event in the transition to the new quantum mechanics of 1925‐1926 because it stimulated physicists to examine anew the fundamental problem of the interaction between radiation and matter. I first discuss Albert Einstein's light‐quantum hypothesis of 1905 and why physicists greeted it with extreme skepticism, despite Robert A. Millikan's confirmation of Einstein's equation of the photoelectric effect in 1915. I then follow in some detail the experimental and theoretical research program that Arthur Holly Compton pursued between 1916 and 1922 at the University of Minnesota, the Westinghouse Lamp Company, the Cavendish Laboratory, and Washington University that culminated in his discovery of the Compton effect. Surprisingly, Compton was not influenced directly by Einstein's light‐quantum hypothesis, in contrast to Peter Debye and H.A. Kramers, who discovered the quantum theory of scattering independently. I close by discussing the most significant response to that discovery, the Bohr‐Kramers‐Slater theory of 1924, its experimental refutation, and its influence on the emerging new quantum mechanics.
Einstein never deviated from his belief in the reality of light quanta. In 1909, he published a remarkable paper in which he showed that fluctuations in the intensity of black-body radiation consisted of the statistical sum of the wave and particle properties of light. Following the 1911 Solvay conference, most of the participants were converted to the existence of light quanta. Bohr first applied the concepts of quanta to the structure of atoms. The experiment which finally convinced everyone of the light quantum hypothesis was Compton's demonstration of the energy change of X-rays in their scattering by electrons. This resulted in the concept of the wave-particle duality of light, one of the major foundation stones of quantum mechanics.
Chapter I The origins of quantum physics I The Compton effect — a strange dichotomy in the nature of electromagnetic radiation In a series of experiments conducted between 1919 and 1923, Arthur Holly Compton (Figure 1.1) investigated the scattering of monochromatic (single-wavelength) X-rays from graphite targets. He found that the radiation scattered at an angle 0 to the incident beam contained, in addition to radiation of the same wavelength as the incident radiation, a second component with a considerably longer wavelength. The existence of this second component in the scattered radiation could not be explained by the well-established theory of the scattering of electromagnetic waves by electrons. Compton considered instead the process illustrated in Figure 1.2, in which a particle of electromagnetic radiation, collides with a slow moving electron, which then recoils absorbing some of the X-ray particle’s energy. Treating the process as a collision between particles, and using only the (relativistic) conservation laws of energy and momentum, Compton was able to account for the effect completely. However, at the same time, in the same experiment, Compton was using interference effects, depending wholly on the wave model, in order to determine the wavelength of the scattered radiation. So here was an experiment which apparently required the simultaneous use of both the wave and particle models of electromagnetic radiation for the interpretation of the results! The existence of this strange dichotomy in the nature of electromagnetic radiation was just one indication of the need for a radical revision of views regarding the physical world.