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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Quantum Mechanics

DeBroglie said, “We know from Einstein that what we thought of as waves can be particles – but what if the reverse is true? What if what we always thought were particles could also be waves?”

 

 

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Prince Louis-Victor de Broglie (1892 - 1987)

Nobel Prize in Physics, 1929, "for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons"

 

Editor’s note: The French word DeBroglie is pronounced “da-broy.”

DeBroglie's hypothesis in 1923 was not overly difficult to understand; in fact, it was too clear, and the physicists of the day didn't like it at all. 

An excellent teacher of physics explains the issue:

Alan Holden (1904 - 1985), Harvard graduate, a physicist and chemist retired from AT&T Bell Labs, produced, in 1962, a clearly-explained documentary presenting the DeBroglie hypothesis, and also the later Davisson-Germer experiment which confirmed it.

Holden: “DeBroglie suggested, back in 1923, that particles might behave like waves, and his suggestion grew out of his comparison with the way matter behaves [to] the way light behaves. He wrote that suggestion into a thesis he was submitting for a doctor’s degree to the University of Paris… DeBroglie’s examiners at the University were reluctant to give him a degree for such a fool idea. He got the degree alright but only because Albert Einstein happened to be visiting Paris at the time and said, Look, this isn’t such a bad idea – maybe it’s even true!”

here's why this new idea was particularly hard to accept

In his thesis, DeBroglie specifically referred to the wave attributes of electrons and, by extrapolation, suggested that all matter might possess these wave properties.

The prevailing attitude in 1923 toward electrons was something like this:

“Ok, alright, we were taken by surprise by Einstein’s ‘photoelectric effect’, we had to admit that light is a particle (at least sometimes), but we can forgive ourselves for that little mistake because light’s been very mysterious for a long time, but when it comes to the electron, well, we’ve got that one all figured out, and we can’t be wrong this time…

 

... we know a lot about the electron, we know its mass, its charge, we even know that it leaves a sharp little mark on the screen as a cathode ray, so the electron is definitely matter, it's not a wave, it's a hard little bee-bee, and that’s that."

Or not! - as Einstein told the university examiners.

what does it mean that matter acts like a wave

DeBroglie asked himself the question, “If light is a particle, but, at times, also acts like a wave, well then, could it be possible that other particles also act like a wave?”

This is brilliant creativity. He would not confine himself to a narrow little box of certainty, of limiting traditional thinking, but extended what was known, and newly known, into other areas of possibility. This is why Einstein, famously, is on record to have said,

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

But what does it mean for matter to act like a wave?

This question opens up a vast debate in physics, one that has been fomenting for a hundred years or more. Is light or the electron a wave or a particle? Is it definitely one or the other? Is it both at the same time, a hybrid, as a water-wave is composed of water molecules? Is it one thing for a while but then changes to its alternate? Or does the particle sort of "smear out" merely to appear as a wave? 

No quick answer can be given right now.

However, in my studies of this question, I have encountered the writings and work of physicists who, in my opinion, have credibly answered it, offering explanation that fits all the data. I hope to present this view, step by step, as we proceed in this series.

 

 

Editor's last word:

If it hadn't been for Einstein's formidable reputation to push the matter forward, DeBroglie's insight might have been discarded as "misinformation," and progress in science could have been set back for a long time.

The examiners at the university were all set to brand this new view as "misinformation" and censor it. Look at what's happening in the world today. The authorites that be, eager to maintain a status quo of power-and-control, label all competing, threatening ideas as "misinformation" and attempt to shut down debate. They care nothing for truth and progress but only to maintain their grip on the world. This is all very Orwellian, but it's what the totalitarian mindset has done, virtually in unbroken line, throughout history. 

Everyone should be allowed to speak, no one, no self-appointed Infallible Dear Leader of Truth, has the right to censor anything. Only thinking minds in dialectic dynamic, only in the purging fires of a rigorous induction, might we come closer to, and discover, "what is" - but never by a heavy-handed process of inquisition.

John Stuart Mill on the censorship of "misinformation": 

“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

 “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.”

 “...there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.”