A story happened in Paris, France at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The same Millennium feast, the Champs Elysé es exudes prosperity and ambiguity, and the Moulin Rouge is filled with agitation and hesitation.
At this time in Paris, there was a young man named de Broglie. As can be seen from his name, this is an aristocrat, and Germany is a symbol of the French aristocracy, just like the "Feng" of the German aristocracy. In fact, de Broglie's father was an earl in France and a cabinet minister in power. Such a playboy who has no worries about food and clothing and how to spend his time all day naturally wants to find something that can consume his physical strength to spend those boring days (in fact, a playboy like him will probably face such a problem)
De Broglie found a cool "career"-studying medieval history. It is said that there are many mysterious things in medieval history that attract the young man.
With the passage of time, it reaches 19 19, which is an era of rapid turbulence in the scientific community. It was in this year that De Broglie suddenly became interested in physics, especially the popular quantum theory. Specifically, I was interested in a cool idea: light has particles.
This view was put forward by Planck more than ten years ago and later used by Einstein to explain the photoelectric effect, but even so, it is very rare in all major schools of physics.
De Broglie doesn't necessarily know much about the physical thought of this view. Maybe his understanding is just that this view is saying that "waves are particles". Perhaps on impulse, perhaps because he was young and calm, De Broglie went to a school of Master Ron Wan Zhi to study as a graduate student.
Since then, de Broglie has embarked on a life track that can overwhelm any legend.
two
It may be hard to say how much energy De Broglie spent on history graduate students. In fact, De Broglie achieved almost nothing in his five-year postgraduate career. In fact, it is conceivable that a medieval history lover who knew nothing about physics before could hardly really make a difference in physics.
Five years passed quickly, and De Broglie began to worry about his doctoral thesis.
In fact, de Broglie only understood what Planck Einstein and his team said: waves are particles. (In fact, Planck can't use the word "always". At this point, Planck has completely abandoned his original quantum hypothesis and returned to the classical framework. ) and the real physics contained in it, how much he can understand, only God knows.
Five years later, in 1924, de Broglie finally submitted his doctoral thesis.
His doctoral thesis is only a little more than one page, but it can be guessed that a paper with a little more than one page has given De Broglie a headache. Unfortunately, no gunman can be hired to help write a doctoral thesis.
His doctoral thesis just said a conjecture, since waves can be particles, particles can also be waves in turn. Furthermore, de Broglie proposed that the relationship between wave vector and angular frequency of wave and particle momentum and energy is as follows:
Momentum = Planck constant/wave vector
Energy = Planck constant * angular frequency
These are two formulas put forward in his paper.
These two formulas are put forward entirely because Einstein proposed that the momentum and energy of photons satisfy this relationship with the parameters of light when explaining the photoelectric effect.
You can imagine what kind of response such a doctoral thesis will get. Long Wan Zhi, the boss of De Broglie, knew the paper review committee in advance before voting whether the paper was passed.
Three of the six professors have made it clear that they will vote against it. It turns out that in Europe, it is normal for a student to study hard for several years without getting a degree, and so is Europe today. Besides, De Broglie is such a playboy, so easy to fool.
However, this time, it happened that it was a little different-De Broglie's father was a cabinet minister with high authority, and De Broglie had been here for five years and didn't even get a doctor, so naturally both sides would be embarrassed.
In desperation, Ron Wan Zhi wrote a letter to a good friend of his.
It is not known whether Langevin wanted to help Dr. De Broyner because of his good intentions, but in fact, this letter changed the track of scientific development.
three
The recipient of this letter is Einstein.
The contents of the letter are roughly as follows:
Dear Albert Einstein:
I have a graduate student here who has studied for five years and is about to graduate. There are some new ideas in his graduation thesis.
Please give your opinion on his paper.
In addition, by the way, the father of this graduate student is an earl and a cabinet minister. If possible ... you will be given a grand reception when you come to France in the future.
Langzhiwan
In the letter, the subtext of Lang Wan Zhi seems to be that if you refuse to face, hehe, don't come to France in the future.
I don't know whether it is out of prudence or appreciation for each other. He was born out of his own deviant ways. Einstein politely replied a letter to the effect that there were some new and interesting ideas in the paper.
At this time, Einstein, although not belonging to any famous school, has become unique and prestigious in the rivers and lakes. With Einstein's letter, several professors on the jury can't say anything more.
So, everyone is very happy.
The prodigal son de Broglie thus "studied" for a doctorate.
According to the academic tradition in Europe at that time, Langevin printed several copies of De Broglie's doctoral thesis and sent them to the physics departments of European universities.
Almost everyone thought that things would stop here. Many years later, De Broglie's "very novel and interesting" doctoral thesis was buried in the archives. De Broglie continued his doctoral life.
However, history always likes to play some jokes inadvertently, and this kind of joke often changes the fate of many people by the way.
One of the doctoral dissertations sent by Langevin came to Vienna University.
four
Morning 1926.
Vienna.
Debye, a professor in charge of physics academic activities at Vienna University at that time, received this doctoral thesis and gave it to a middle-aged lecturer in his group.
The lecturer was assigned to give a speech on the doctor's theory at the seminar two weeks later.
This "old" lecturer has already adapted to his present life, and I don't know whether it is mediocre or quiet. It is conceivable that a person who has reached the age of no doubt but is still muddling along in the post of lecturer, his academic future is naturally hazy and gloomy. It is because of this lecturer's position that it can get this task, because Debye gave the task to this lecturer on the grounds that "the problem you are studying now is not very important. Tell us about De Broglie's paper."
The name of the lecturer is Schrodinger.
In the next two weeks, Schrodinger carefully read De Broglie's "doctoral thesis". In fact, in terms of content, the word "careful" may not be used at all. De Broglie's paper is only a little more than one page, and only two formulas are put forward throughout, and their prototypes have appeared in Einstein's published papers.
However, Schrodinger was puzzled by what he said in his paper. Schrodinger only knows that De Broglie talked a lot about "waves are particles, particles are waves", and in addition, it is "two orioles singing green willows"-I don't know what to say.
Two weeks later, Schrodinger crustily skin of head told the content of this paper at the seminar. The speaker doesn't understand, the listener is naturally in a fog, while the boss Debye politely evaluates:
"The young man's point of view is still very novel. Although it seems naive, of course, maybe he needs to go further. For example, since the concept of fluctuation is mentioned, there must always be a wave equation. "
Many years later, Debye was asked if he regretted the comments he had made. Debye laughed at himself: "Don't you think this is a good comment?"
Moreover, Debye suggested Schrodinger to do this job, and he will speak at the seminar two weeks later.
Two weeks later.
Schrodinger explained De Broglie's paper again at the seminar and found the wave equation for De Broglie's "wave".
This equation is the Schrodinger equation!
Of course, De Broglie's paper was regarded as garbage from the beginning, and the nature generated from garbage would not be too far away from garbage, so no one really took this equation of "wave" that was abruptly given to De Broglie seriously, and some even made up a jingle to satirize Schrodinger's equation:
Owen used his psi, and the calculation was really well informed;
But what psi stands for, no one can tell.
(Irving is Schrodinger, psi is the variable in Schrodinger's wave equation)
The story seems mediocre, but mediocrity can sometimes be the reason for miracles.
It was Schrodinger's "mediocrity" that made him unwilling to accept the mediocrity of his wave equation, and he decided to try his luck in this equation again.
five
The plot mentioned above looks like an earthquake under the lake in the big environment at that time-it looks calm from the lake.
Please allow me to temporarily stop tracking the "old" lecturer Schrodinger and review the storm that has happened on the surface of this great lake in physics in the past two years.
Previously, Bohr proposed a famous trilogy inspired by Planck and Einstein's theory, which explained the hydrogen spectrum. In this decade's development, the Copenhagen School headed by Bohr has become the "Shaolin Wudang" in quantum theory.
1925, Bohr's favorite disciple Heisenberg put forward the famous matrix mechanics, further abandoned the classical concept, revealed the quantum image, and accurately explained many phenomena, which has become the treasure of Copenhagen School-the "dragon slayer" in the quantum world. But few physicists knew about matrices at that time, so the influence of matrix mechanics was still limited. In fact, even Heisenberg himself didn't understand the "matrix", but after his theory came out, Born, another disciple of Copenhagen School, told Heisenberg that he used the matrix in mathematics.
Let's go back and pay attention to what our quiet old lecturer Schrodinger is doing-I mean two weeks after Schrodinger explained his wave equation.
In fact, at this time, he is immersed in the gentle countryside-skiing with his mistress at a ski resort in Vienna.
I don't know if it's a pleasant scenery or a soft and fragrant nephrite around me. In short, something inspired Schrodinger, and it was this inspiration that changed the track of physics development.
Schrodinger got Bohr's theory of hydrogen atom from his equation!
six
When e-day came out, the whole world was frightened.
Since then, no one dares to treat Schrodinger's wave equation as nonsense.
Bohr, the head of Copenhagen School, was even more surprised, so he invited Schrodinger to Copenhagen to discuss the subtleties of quantum in detail.
However, to Bohr's regret, during the ten-day "discussion", two people could not understand each other at all. Schrodinger returned to Vienna after a fruitless "Cobain Hagen on the Sword".
Schrodinger returned to Vienna and continued to do a job. He proved that Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and the quantum theory expressed by his wave equation are actually just different descriptions.
From then on, "Eternal Reliance" and "Dragon Slayer" became one.
Since then, Schrodinger has tried to derive more basic equations from more basic assumptions, but he failed in the end. Soon, he also lost interest in this and turned to study "what is life".
History continues the romance of his historical comedy.
Both de Broglie and Schrodinger are recorded in history as Nobel Prize winners in this comedy.
End of movement
In fact, in this absurd history, God still kept some justice. Schrodinger got its wave equation only one year after Heisenberg's matrix mechanics was born. If God had played a bigger joke and asked Schrodinger to derive the Schrodinger equation before 1925, I am afraid that matrix mechanics would not have been born at all (the theory of wave equation, that is, partial differential equation, is familiar to most physicists, but matrix was not understood by many people at that time). In this way, the Copenhagen school, which has been struggling in the quantum field for more than ten years, really wants to vomit blood!
Although Schrodinger equation has worked out such a wave equation, it can't really understand the essence of this equation, but it gives its equation a wrong explanation-maybe something that doesn't belong to him will not be given to him after all. The correct explanation of Schrodinger equation was made by Born of Copenhagen School. (Of course, Born's explanation also made Einstein, another master of physics, extremely angry, and he never forgot that "God will not decide the world with dice" until his death, which is another story).
The more basic equation of quantum mechanics, that is, the basic theory that Schrodinger tried to obtain but could not reach after all, was deduced by Dirac, another young disciple of the radical Hagen School, who finally led the group and built the temple of quantum mechanics.
for reference only