ilya_prigogine_isabelle_stengers_alvin_tofflerbookfi-org

ORDER OUT OF CHAOS 220
results were difficult to explain in terms of the traditional wave
properties of light. Einstein solved the riddle by assuming that
light may be both wave and particle and that these two aspects
are related through Planck's constant. More precisely, a light
wave is characterized by its frequency u and its wavelength X;
h permits us to go from frequency and wavelength to mechanical
quantities such as energy e and momentum p. The relations
between u and A on the one side and e and p on the other are
Very simple: B = hu, p = h/X, and both involve h. 1\.venty years
later, Louis de Broglie extended this wave-particle duality
from light to matter; thus the starting point for the modern
formulation of quantum mechanics.
In 1913 Niels Bohr had linked the new quantum physics to
the structure of atoms (and later of molecules). As a result of
the wave-particle duality, he showed that there exist discrete
sequences of electron orbits. When an atom is excited, the
electron jumps from one orbit to another. At this very instant
the atom emits or absorbs a photon the frequency of which
corresponds to the difference between the energies characterizing
the electron's motion in each of the two orbits. This
difference is calculated in terms of Einstein's formula relating
energy to frequency.
Thus we reach the decisive years 1925-27, a "golden age" of
physics.7 During this short period, Heisenberg, Born, Jordan,
Schrodinger, and Dirac made quantum physics into a consistent
new theory. This theory incorporates Einstein's and de
Broglie's wave-particle duality in the framework of a new generalized
form of dynamics: quantum mechanics. For our purposes
here, the conceptual novelty of quantum mechanics is
essential.
First and foremost, a new formulation, unknown in classical
physics, had to be introduced to allow "quantitization" to be
incorporated into the theoretical language. The essential fact
is that an atom can be found only in discrete energy levels
corresponding to the various electron orbits. In particular, this
means that energy (or the Hamiltonian) can no longer be
merely a function of the position and the moment, as it is in
classical mechanics. Otherwise, by giving the positions and
moments slightly different values, energy could be made to
vary continuously. But as observation reveals, only discrete
levels exist.