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Sir William Bragg
(2 Jul 1862 - 12 Mar 1942)
British physicist.
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Science Quotes by Sir William Bragg (4)
But in its [the corpuscular theory of radiation] relation to the wave theory there is one extraordinary and, at present, insoluble problem. It is not known how the energy of the electron in the X-ray bulb is transferred by a wave motion to an electron in the photographic plate or in any other substance on which the X-rays fall. It is as if one dropped a plank into the sea from the height of 100 ft. and found that the spreading ripple was able, after travelling 1000 miles and becoming infinitesimal in comparison with its original amount, to act upon a wooden ship in such a way that a plank of that ship flew out of its place to a height of 100 ft. How does the energy get from one place to the other?
— Sir William Bragg
'Aether Waves and Electrons' (Summary of the Robert Boyle Lecture), Nature, 1921, 107, 374.
Light brings us the news of the Universe.
— Sir William Bragg
The Universe of Light (1933), 1.
No known theory can be distorted so as to provide even an approximate explanation [of wave-particle duality]. There must be some fact of which we are entirely ignorant and whose discovery may revolutionize our views of the relations between waves and ether and matter. For the present we have to work on both theories. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we use the wave theory; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays we think in streams of flying energy quanta or corpuscles.
— Sir William Bragg
'Electrons and Ether Waves', The Robert Boyle Lecture 1921, Scientific Monthly, 1922, 14, 158.
The dividing line between the wave or particle nature of matter and radiation is the moment 'Now'. As this moment steadily advances through time it coagulates a wavy future into a particle past.
— Sir William Bragg
Attributed.
See also: | Quantum Theory (17)
Quotes by others about Sir William Bragg (1)
[Professor Bragg asserts that] In sodium chloride there appear to be no molecules represented by NaCl. The equality in number of sodium and chlorine atoms is arrived at by a chess-board pattern of these atoms; it is a result of geometry and not of a pairing- off of the atoms.
In Henry E. Armstrong, 'Poor Common Salt!', Nature, 1927, 120, 478.