TOWARDS QUANTUM MECHANICS

BOHR, NIELS (+) H.A. KRAMERS (+) J.C. SLATER.

Über die Quantentheorie der Strahlung. (The quantum theory of radiation).

Braunschweig, Berlin, Vieweg & Sohn u. Julius Springer, 1924. 8vo. Bound in contemporary halfcloth. In "Zeitschrift für Physik", Bd. 23 & 24. (Entire volume offered). No stamps, not an ex library copy. Fine and clean. Pp.69-87. [Entire volume: IV,412 pp].

First apperance (simultaneously printed in Philosophical Magazine) of a fundamental paper in the development of the Quantum Theory. Three fundamental ideas were set forth here: 1. Slater's idea of 'a Virtual radiation field', 2. statistical conservation of energy and momentum, and 3. statistical independence of the processes of emission and absorption in distant atoms. (See Van der Waerden "Sources of Quantum Mechanics" No. 5).

"In an effort to reconcile the particulate and wavelike properties of radiation, Bohr, Kramers, and Slater in 1924 formulated a new quantum theory of radiation. According to their hypothesis, momentum and energy-are conserved only statistically in interactions between radiation and matter.".

The present paper became a great influence to Bothe and his Compton collisions and the Coincidence method which eventually resulted in him being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Order-nr.: 48981