Milestones of Science Books

BROGLIE, Louis Victor, Prince de.

Conséquences de la relativité dans le développement de la mécanique ondulatoire / L'Électron magnétique (théorie de Dirac) / La mécanique ondulatoire du photon.

Paris: Hermann et Cie, 1932.

1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. Item #003696

Conséquences de la relativité dans le développement de la mécanique ondulatoire. Actualités scientifiques et industrielles XLII. Paris: Hermann et Cie, 1932. 8vo (254 x 163 mm). 14 pp. Original stiff wrappers printed in red and black (light fraying at head of spine). Uncut and partially unopened. Provenance: Bookseller's ticket (Albert Blanchard) inside frontwrapper. Text crisp and clean, correction of equation on p.6 and a few text markings in blue crayon. Provenance: Jean-Louis Destouches*, with the AUTHOR'S AUTOGRAPH SIGNED DEDICATION (in English!) at head of title. A near fine copy.
[Joined:] BROGLIE, Louis Victor, Prince de. L'Électron magnétique (théorie de Dirac). Paris: Hermann et Cie, 1934. 8vo (250 x 160 mm). viii, [2], 315 [1] pp., 2 plates on one sheet, text illustrations and diagrams. Original stiff wrappers printed in red and black (tanning of spine and upper front wrapper, short split at top of spine). All pages uncut. Text little browned. Provenance: illegible signature on title.
[Joined:] BROGLIE, Louis Victor, Prince de. La mécanique ondulatoire du photon. Une nouvelle théorie de la lumière. I. La lumière dans le vide. II. Les interactions entre les photons et la matière. Paris: Hermann et Cie, 1940-1942. Two volumes. 8vo (254 x 166 mm). 281, [3]; 148 pp. Text diagrams. Original stiff wrappers printed in red and black (wrappers somewhat dust-soiled, spines tanned). All pages uncut. Text clean and bright throughout. ----

I. Extremely rare dedication copy (de Broglie usually refused to sign his work). *Jean-Louis Destouches (1909-1980) was a French physicist and philosopher. From 1929, he studied with Émile Borel, Jean Perrin, Marie Curie, Irène Joliot-Curie, and above all Louis de Broglie. His doctoral thesis, defended in 1933, dealt with the theories of "superquantization" (known today as the theories of "second quantization"). It was created as part of a seminar by de Broglie for advanced students that Destouches had suggested. De Broglie had then, albeit reluctantly, subscribed to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory (abandoning his pilot-wave and double-solution theories), which also impressed Destouches. In 1952, Destouches carefully followed the turning point in the thought of Louis de Broglie, who now rejected the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics. At the time, Louis de Broglie wanted to (re-)formulate his "double solution theory" (particle and wave) which, he hoped, would make it possible to replace quantum mechanics with a theory that lends itself to a realistic interpretation. Destouches however remained attached to the standard interpretation of quantum theory, close to instrumentalism, but he strives to understand de Broglie's ideas in his own way. For this, he formulates his own reading of the theory of the double solution, distinguishing between the "physical" wave u associated with a corpuscle, and the "predictive" wave ?, used by quantum mechanics. At the same time, Destouches sought to apply his general theory of forecasting to fields outside of physics, including economics. Literature: DSB II, p.487.
II. First edition in which Louis de Broglie exposes his theory of so-called "neutrinal" light, based on the idea that the photon results from the fusion of two neutral particles, the hypothetical Dirac neutrinos.
III. First Edition. - Visit our website to see more images!

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