Did de Broglie err in his hypothesis?

[drl]

I'm a novice in this so to start with, I believe ...
[mentor's note: a personal theory posted in violation of the Physics Forums rules has been removed from this post]

 

[mgkii]

Hi drl

I would recommend reading more into the subject and maybe reading some introductory text around quantum field theory. When electrons are described as Wave and Particle, they are simplifications that describe wave-like and particle-like behaviours, depending on how you are measuring the electron in any particular experiment; they aren't descriptions of an electron actually being a wave or a particle. If you study particle physics more deeply, you'll probably think of electrons (and in fact all particles) and not particles at all, but vibrations in a field. Analogies are really helpful to get concepts across and aid understanding, but they are also really dangerous and you won't be the first or last person to fall into the trap of taking them literally!.

Hope this helps
Matt

 

[bhobba]

De Broglie was wrong. His ideas were overthrown when the correct quantum theory was developed with Dirac's transformation theory of 1926:
http://www.lajpe.org/may08/09_Carlos_Madrid.pdf

So forget all the guff you have read elsewhere which I can see from the above has really confused you.

Here is the explanation of the double slit using just QM:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/quant-ph/papers/0703/0703126.pdf

Once you have studied that we can chat about what's really going on. But basically its due to the uncertainty principle and principle of superposition - not the wave-particle duality which is an idea of limited applicability at best and maybe even downright wrong:
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0609163

Thanks
Bill

 

[mgkii]

Love that last link Bill - have downloaded it to read tomorrow (well... realistically over a number of tomorrows!) Thanks.

 

[bhobba]

Love that last link Bill - have downloaded it to read tomorrow (well... realistically over a number of tomorrows!)

Glad you like it.

Unfortunately we get a fair number of posters here confused by standard beginner treatments and you have to, sometimes, spend a bit of time explaining beginner texts have issues.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Nugatory]

Posts involving some basic misunderstandigns of the Physics Forums rules about personal theories have been removed.
This thread is closed.