Introducing the Particle-Wave Duality and an Epochal Idea in Physics
Nobel Prize Awarded for this work in 1929
“Louis de Broglie achieved a worldwide reputation for his discovery of the wave theory of matter, for which he received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1929. His work was extended into a full-fledged wave mechanics by Erwin Schrödinger and thus contributed to the creation of quantum mechanics. After an early attempt to propose a deterministic interpretation of his theory, de Broglie joined the Copenhagen school’s mainstream noncausal interpretation of the quantum theory."--Dictionary of Scientific Biography
Louis de Broglie. 3 papers in the Comptes Rendus, 1923, establishing the wave theory of matter.
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“Ondes et quanta. Note de M. Louis de Broglie, présentée par M. Jean Perrin. (Séance du 10 Septembre 1923),” pp. 507-510.
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“Quanta de lumière, diffraction et interférences. Note de M. Louis de Broglie, transmise par M. Jean Perrin. (Séance du 24 Septembre 1923),” pp. 548-551.
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“Les quanta, la théorie cinétique des gaz et le principe de Fermat. Note de M. Louis de Broglie, présentée par M. Deslandres. (Seance du 8 Octobre 1923),” pp. 630-32.
Paris, Gauthier-Villars et Cie, 1923, the three papers with their original wrappers in Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de L'Academie des Sciences, Tome 177, 1513 pp. (All of the front wrappers for all of the weekly issues are bound in at the back.) Bound in black cloth with marbled page edges. Gilt-stamped former library stamped at spine bottom, "U.S. Weather Bureau"; each wrapper has 1.5-inch oval stamp from the Weather Bureau; there is also a neat borrowing pocket on the front pastedown. (Condition: the three papers all have an old vertical fold in the middle of the page, as do the wrappers, where the fold appears more like a line. The paper used in the 1920's CR was inferior, or at least the many copies of the journal that I have seen have all appeared this way, and is browning along the edges and margins.) Very good copy. [SOLD]
"This idea [i.e. de Broglie's that matter might behave as waves] was tested and confirmed by Davisson and Germer in 1927... Thus the duality of both light and matter had been established, and physicists had to come to terms with fundamental particles which defied simple theories and demanded two sets of 'complementary' descriptions, each applicable under certain circumstances, but incompatible with one another." (Printing and the Mind of Man, 417).
De Broglie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1929 "for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons".
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