This week marks the centenary of the French physicist Louis de Broglie’s doctoral thesis, which later earned him a Nobel prize for “his discovery of the wave nature of electrons”. This discovery constitutes a central aspect of quantum mechanics, and it led to his famous “pilot wave” theory, which provides an alternative way to formulate the theory of quantum mechanics itself. However, de Broglie quickly denied his own theory. But for what reasons?
The theory of quantum mechanics describes the behaviour of matter at small scales, such as that of atoms or electrons. Its discovery dates from the beginning of the 20th century, but many questions about it remain debated. This is largely due to the puzzling characteristics of the theory. For example, quantum particles such as electrons seem to behave sometimes like particles, sometimes like waves.
