Louis de Broglie

Broglie lived the life of a bachelor all through.

In 1960, after the death of his older brother, Maurice, he succeeded as the 7th duc de Broglie, as Maurice left without any heir.

He breathed his last on March 19, 1987 in Louveciennes, France. He was 94 years old. After his death, he was succeeded as Duke by a distant cousin, Victor-François, 8th duc de Broglie.

Louis de Broglie was born on August 15, 1892 to Victor, 5th Duc de Broglie and Pauline d’Armaille in Dieppe, Siene-Maritime. He had an elder brother, Maurice, who too went on to become a physicist.

De Broglie completed his preliminary studies from Lycee Janson of Sailly. Initially, he desired to make a career in humanities and as such, applied himself to literary studies, later acquiring a degree in history in 1910. He was, however, soon lured by science, so much so, that in 1913, he attained a degree in physics.

In 1914, with the onset of World War I, he was conscripted into the military and offered his services in the development of radio communications. He was posted at Eiffel Tower, where he spent considerable time studying technical aspect of physics.

Post World War I, he resumed his studies of general physics. He began working with his brother, Maurice, in his lab. Maurice’s work involved X-Rays, and it was here that de Broglie got the idea of wave-particle duality.

In 1924, he submitted his thesis, Recherches sur la théorie des quanta (Research on the Theory of the Quanta) at the Faculty of Sciences at Paris University. Through it, he introduced his revolutionary theory of electron waves. He was awarded a doctorate degree.

His thesis presented a series of important findings that changed the way people perceived the physical phenomena on atomic scale. Popularly known as the de Broglie hypothesis today, his postulated that any moving particle or object has an associated wave. With this, he created a new field of physics, wave mechanics that unites the physics of energy and matter.

De Broglie's hypothesis was supported by Einstein and in 1927, electron diffraction experiments of Davisson and Germer confirmed that electrons have wave like properties.

Broglie’s developed the revolutionary theory of electron waves, which formed the basis of his research thesis paper. Based on the works of Max Planck and Albert Einstein, he worked on the wave-particle duality theory of matter and came out with the notion that every moving object or particle had an associated wave. His theory led to the creation of a new field in physics, wave mechanics. The theory was widely accepted after the experiment by Davisson and Germer proved that matter showed wave-like characteristics.