Compton, Arthur Holly

1995/08/02 Azkune Mendia, Iñaki - Elhuyar Fundazioa | Kaltzada, Pili - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Biografiak

(1892-1962)

This American physicist was born in the Wooster of Ohio on September 0, 1892. His father was a Presbyterian pastor and dean of the local school. There Compton achieved the degree of graduate in 1913 and three years later, in 1916, the doctorate at Princenton.

For a year he taught physics at Minesota University and then worked at the Westinghouse Lamp Company in Pittsburgh. In 1919 he travelled to England for a year to study under the direction of Rutherford at Cambridge University. In 1920 he was appointed head of the Department of Physics of the University of Washington in Saint Louis of Missouri and in 1923 he moved to the University of Chicago.

Compton tested Barkla on the dispersion of matter in X-rays. Barkla analyzed the dispersion of the X-ray, but Compton could accurately measure the wavelength of the X-rays that depended on the paterno-sons Bragg techniques and were dispersed.

When he did this work in 1923, when dispersing it, he observed that the wavelength of some X-rays increased. This phenomenon was called Compton effect, in honor of the discoverer, and years later Ran discovered something similar in matter of visible light.

Compton explained this effect: a photon collided with an electron and the electron took part of the photon energy, thus increasing the wavelength. Therefore, it seemed that the photon acted as a particle, so Newton, as postulate, began to consider again the character of corpus of light. But the corpuscule nature of light was complicated by the theories of Planck and Einstein media and AX. In the eighteenth century the wave phenomena established by Young, Maxwell and Fresnel were not clarified.

However, in Compton's work the most important thing was to highlight the undulating character and corpus of electromagnetic radiation. De Broglie, for his part, showed that this theory could also be applied to simple particles, such as electrons. At the same time, the fact of being Ain and corpus surprised some scientists and was considered a paradox. But it is not paradoxical that photons or electrons have more than one side.

For the discovery of its effect in 1927, Compton received the Nobel Prize in that year with Wilson.

From 1930, Compton took over the cosmic rays. Cosmic rays, like gamma rays, were electromagnetic, but of higher energy. If so, cosmic rays should not be affected by the Earth's magnetic field and should fall equal to all parts of the Earth's surface. However, if cosmic rays were charged particles, the Earth's magnetic field should be diverted and detected more often around the Earth's magnetic poles.

Compton toured the world making its measurements and showed that latitude had its influence. Therefore, cosmic rays were to be partially charged.

He was one of the most important scientists of the Compton Manhattan project during World War II. According to this project, an atomic bomb was manufactured, which then exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

At the end of the war he returned to the University of Washington. He was rector until March 15, 1962 at Berkeley, California.