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Louis de Broglie: Seeing the Waves Within
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16215 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1997 |
2,916 Words |
| Author
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Varadaraja V. Raman
Varadaraja V. Raman is professor of physics emeritus at the
Rochester Institute of Technology. He did his doctoral work
at
the University of Paris under the direction of Louis de
Broglie. |
The world of science is a community of minds whose backgrounds and interests are as varied as the human potential. Yet practicing scientists are similar in at least one respect: in their eagerness to know and interpret the world of experience, to probe into the innermost recesses of every observed phenomenon, and to derive a peculiar joy from recognizing the patterns and principles undergirding our complex world. When their countless efforts bear fruit, they are for all to share and for all times.
This aspect of the world of science is exemplified in the long and productive life of Louis de Broglie, a French physicist of distant Italian ancestry. De Broglie's subtle yet significant discovery was provoked by philosophical reflections rather than with complex instruments and precise experiments, and its impact was to revolutionize the scientific notion of the nature of reality.
The Broglias were an old Italian aristocratic family who had lived in the Turin region for many generations. In the seventeenth century, a member of this family, taking a fascination for France, changed his name to Francois Marie and joined the French army. He was made the Duc (Duke) de Broglie in 1742, and it is to this line of French nobility that the physicist Louis de Broglie belonged. This is why he bore the title Le Prince.
Louis-Victor-Pierre-Raymond de Broglie, born August 15, 1892, was the fifth child and second son of Louis-Amédée-Victor and Pauline d'Armaille de Broglie. In high school he was interested in mathematics, but he also studied his philosophy seriously. He loved French literature, but was also a good student of history. According to one report, he was
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