February 1, 1958 – Death of Clinton Davisson, discoverer of the diffraction of electrons from crystalline surfaces

D. in physics in 1911, he became an assistant professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and, in 1917, began conducting research with the Engineering Department of the Western Electric Company (later to become Bell Telephone Laboratories).

He retired for the first time in 1946 and, unable to give up research, accepted a research professorship at the University of Virginia until his second retirement in 1954.

In 1927, together with Lester Halbert Germer, he discovered the diffraction of electrons through crystalline bodies, which experimentally confirmed the theories of wave mechanics.

Diffraction is a very characteristic effect that occurs when a wave is incident on an aperture or grating. In the 19th century, this concept was well established for light and waves on fluid surfaces, but the Davisson-Germer experiment showed that electrons diffracted on the surface of a nickel crystal. In this way, they confirmed De Broglie's hypothesis that particles of matter have a wave nature, a central tenet of quantum mechanics, and achieved the first measurement of a wavelength for electrons.

In 1937, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with George Paget Thomson, for his discovery of electron diffraction.

If you want to know more about this scientist, click on the following link: Clinton Joseph Davisson