Q.The waves associated with a moving electron and a moving proton have the same wavelength λ. It implies that they have the same : (A) momentum (B) angular momentum (C) speed (D) energy
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🔒 Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Concept understanding — De Broglie Wavelength
De Broglie Wavelength: When Particles Start Acting Like Waves
Imagine you're holding a cricket ball. You know exactly where it is, and if you throw it, you can predict its path. That's a particle — localised, definite, following Newton's laws. Now think of light. You can't "hold" a beam of light; it spreads out, bends around corners, creates interference patterns. That's a wave — spread out, not localised.
For centuries, physics kept these two worlds separate. Particles were particles. Waves were waves. Never the twain shall meet.
Then came a young French physicist, Louis de Broglie, in 1924. He asked a question that seemed almost absurd: If light — which we thought was a wave — can behave like a particle (the photoelectric effect), then why can't a particle — say, an electron — behave like a wave?
That question turned physics upside down.
The Core Idea
De Broglie proposed that every moving particle has a wave associated with it. The wavelength of that wave depends on the particle's momentum. The faster or heavier the particle, the shorter the wavelength.
λ=ph=mvh
Where:
- λ = de Broglie wavelength (in metres)
- h = Planck's constant (6.626×10−34 J⋅s)
- p = momentum of the particle (mv for non-relativistic speeds)
This is not a mathematical trick. It's a physical reality. An electron moving through a crystal actually behaves like a wave of this wavelength — it can diffract, interfere, and form patterns just like light does.
Why You Don't See It in Daily Life
Here's the crucial point: the de Broglie wavelength is incredibly tiny for everyday objects.
Take a cricket ball of mass 0.16 kg moving at 30 m/s. Its de Broglie wavelength is:
λ=0.16×306.626×10−34≈1.38×10−34 m
That's about a hundred trillion trillion times smaller than the nucleus of an atom. No experiment can detect such a wave — it's effectively zero for all practical purposes.
Now take an electron (mass 9.1×10−31 kg) accelerated through 100 volts. Its speed is about 5.9×106 m/s. Its de Broglie wavelength:
λ=9.1×10−31×5.9×1066.626×10−34≈1.23×10−10 m
That's about 0.12 nanometres — comparable to the spacing between atoms in a crystal. This is measurable. And indeed, in 1927, Davisson and Germer fired electrons at a nickel crystal and observed diffraction — the unmistakable signature of a wave.
The de Broglie wavelength is only observable when it is comparable to the size of objects the particle interacts with. For macroscopic objects, it's far too small to matter. For subatomic particles, it's the key to understanding their behaviour.
What This Means Physically
The wave is not a physical wave in space like a water wave. It's a probability wave — its amplitude at any point tells you the probability of finding the particle there. Where the wave amplitude is large, you're likely to find the particle; where it's zero, you won't.
This wave-particle duality is not a compromise. It's the actual nature of reality. An electron is neither a pure particle nor a pure wave — it's something that shows particle-like behaviour in some experiments (like hitting a screen at a point) and wave-like behaviour in others (like passing through two slits and interfering with itself). …
Why this formula?
De Broglie Wavelength: Why the Formula Holds
Let's build this from the ground up — understanding why matter has a wavelength, not just memorizing λ=ph.
The Core Insight: Nature's Symmetry
Before de Broglie, physics had two separate worlds:
- Light — showed wave behaviour (diffraction, interference) but also particle behaviour (photoelectric effect)
- Matter — showed particle behaviour (momentum, collisions) but no wave behaviour yet
De Broglie asked a daring question in his 1924 PhD thesis:
If light (a wave) can behave like a particle, why can't a particle (like an electron) behave like a wave?
Nature should be symmetric — what applies to one should apply to the other.
Step 1: Start with Light (What We Already Knew)
For a photon, Einstein had given us two key relations:
- Energy: E=hf (Planck's relation)
- Momentum: p=λh (from E=pc for light, combined with c=fλ)
So for light:
λ=ph
This was experimentally verified for photons.
Step 2: De Broglie's Bold Hypothesis
De Broglie said: This relation is not special to light. It is universal.
For any particle with momentum p:
λ=ph
Where:
- λ = de Broglie wavelength
- h = Planck's constant (6.626×10−34 J⋅s)
- p = momentum of the particle
Step 3: Why Momentum and Not Velocity?
This is crucial. The formula uses momentum (p=mv), not just velocity.
For a non-relativistic particle (slow compared to light):
λ=mvh
For a relativistic particle (like an electron at high speed):
p=γmvwhereγ=1−v2/c21
λ=γmvh
Why momentum? Because momentum is the more fundamental quantity — it's conserved, it's frame-independent in a deeper sense, and it connects directly to the wave's phase.
Step 4: The Deeper Reasoning — Wave-Particle Duality
De Broglie didn't just guess. He reasoned:
- Every moving particle has an associated wave — called the "matter wave" or "pilot wave"
- The frequency of this wave comes from energy: f=hE
- The wavelength comes from momentum: λ=ph
These two relations are linked by the phase velocity of the wave:
vphase=fλ=hE⋅ph=pE
For a free particle with kinetic energy E=2mp2:
vphase=2mp=2v
This is half the particle's speed — a strange but mathematically consistent result.
Step 5: Experimental Confirmation (Why We Believe It)
De Broglie's idea was confirmed when electrons showed wave behaviour: …
Concept: De Broglie wavelength relates a particle's momentum to its wave nature.
The de Broglie wavelength is given by:
λ=ph
where h is Planck's constant and p is the momentum.
If the electron and proton have the same wavelength λ, then:
peh=pph
This immediately gives pe=pp. The particles have equal momentum.
Now check the other quantities. Since momentum p=mv, equal momentum with different masses (mp≫me) means different speeds: ve≫vp. …
De Broglie's relation λ=ph shows that equal wavelengths mean equal momenta, regardless of mass. The answer is (A) momentum.
Why wavelength determines momentum
De Broglie's revolutionary insight was that every moving particle has a wave associated with it, with wavelength inversely proportional to its momentum. The relation is beautifully simple:
λ=ph
where h is Planck's constant and p is the momentum. This is the foundation of wave-particle duality.
Notice what this equation tells us: wavelength depends only on momentum, not on mass, not on kinetic energy, not on speed individually. If two particles—no matter how different their masses—have the same de Broglie wavelength, they must have identical momenta.
Step-by-step analysis
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Apply de Broglie's relation to both particles
For the electron:
λ=peh
For the proton:
λ=pph
-
Equate the wavelengths
Since both wavelengths are equal:
peh=pph
Canceling h from both sides:
pe=pp
So the momenta are identical. This immediately confirms option (A).
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Check the other options
Now let's see why the remaining quantities differ. Remember that a proton is roughly 1836 times heavier than an electron: mp≈1836me.
Speed: Since p=mv, equal momentum means:
meve=mpvp
ve=mempvp≈1836vp
The electron moves much faster. Speeds are not equal.
-
Energy comparison
For non-relativistic particles, kinetic energy is:
E=2mp2
With equal momentum p:
Ee=2mep2,Ep=2mpp2
Since mp≫me:
Ee=mempEp≈1836Ep …
- KCET 2026Set D31 markMCQQ.Which of the following represents de Broglie equation? (A) λ=mνh (B) λ=mνh (C) λ=mph (D) λ=pμ
›Reveal solutionSolution
The de Broglie relation connects a moving particle's wavelength to its momentum via Planck's constant.
Step 1 — de Broglie's hypothesis
Louis de Broglie proposed that every moving particle of mass m and velocity ν has an associated "matter wave" whose wavelength λ is inversely proportional to its momentum p=mν.
Step 2 — The equation
This gives λ=ph=mνh, where h is Planck's constant.
Step 3 — Eliminating the other options …
- KCET 2023Set A-31 markMCQQ.When light propagates through a given homogeneous medium, the velocities of (A) primary wavefronts are lesser than those of secondary wavelets. (B) primary wavefronts are greater than or equal to those of secondary wavelets. (C) primary wavefront and wavelets are equal. (D) primary wavefront are larger than those of secondary wavelets.
›Reveal solutionSolution
Huygens' principle: in a homogeneous medium the secondary wavelets travel at the same speed as the primary wavefront, because the medium offers the same speed everywhere.
1. The concept — Huygens' principle.
Huygens' geometrical construction says:
- Every point on a primary wavefront behaves as a fresh source of disturbance, emitting secondary wavelets.
- These wavelets travel in the forward direction with the speed of the wave in that medium.
- After a time t, the new position of the wavefront is the forward envelope (common tangent) of all the secondary wavelets.
2. Why the two speeds must be identical here.
The new wavefront is constructed as the envelope of wavelets of radius vt. If the wavelets moved at some speed different from v, the envelope they build would advance at that different speed — the wavefront's speed simply is the wavelets' speed. In a homogeneous medium the speed v=c/n is the same at every point and in every direction, so:
vwavelet=vwavefront=nc
3. Why the other options fail. …
- KCET 2022Set B-31 markMCQQ.“Heat cannot be itself flow from a body at lower temperature to a body at higher temperature”. This statement corresponds to (A) Conservation of mass (B) First law of thermodynamics (C) Second law of Thermodynamics (D) Conservation of momentum
›Reveal solutionSolution
The quoted sentence is verbatim the Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Step 1 — Recognise the statement.
The sentence "heat cannot of itself flow from a body at lower temperature to a body at higher temperature" is the classic Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The two crucial words are "of itself" — meaning spontaneously, with no external agency.
Step 2 — Why the First Law cannot be the answer.
The First Law is just energy conservation:
ΔQ=ΔU+ΔW
It is completely indifferent to direction. If 100 J flowed spontaneously from a cold body to a hot one, energy would still be perfectly conserved — the First Law would be entirely satisfied. Yet such a process is never observed. So the First Law is not sufficient to explain the one-way nature of heat flow; something more is needed, and that something is the Second Law.
Step 3 — What the Second Law adds: direction.
The Second Law supplies the arrow of time for thermal processes, quantified by entropy: for any spontaneous process in an isolated system,
ΔStotal≥0
If heat Q passed spontaneously from a cold reservoir at TC to a hot one at TH (with TH>TC):
ΔStotal=cold body loses−TCQ+hot body gainsTHQ=Q(TH1−TC1)<0 …
- KCET 2022Set B-31 markMCQQ.If wavelength of photon is 2.2×10−11m and h=6.6×10−34 Js , then momentum of photon (A) 1.452×10−44 kgms−1 (B) 6.89×1043 kgms−1 (C) 3×10−23 kgms−1 (D) 3.33×10−22 kgms−1
›Reveal solutionSolution
Use p=h/λ — the de Broglie / photon-momentum relation — and divide.
1. Why p=h/λ
A photon has zero rest mass, so its momentum cannot be found from p=mv. From special relativity, a massless particle satisfies E=pc; and from Planck's hypothesis its energy is E=hν. Combining, and using c=νλ:
p=cE=chν=νλhν
p=λh
(This is also exactly de Broglie's relation, read backwards — it is the same equation that assigns a wavelength to matter.)
Notice that c has cancelled: we do not need the speed of light, which is why the question only supplies h and λ.
2. Substitute
h=6.6×10−34 J s,λ=2.2×10−11 m
p=2.2×10−116.6×10−34
3. Arithmetic
Mantissas: 2.26.6=3
Exponents: 10−34−(−11)=10−23 …
- KCET 2021Set B-21 markMCQQ.A pendulum oscillates simple harmonically if and only if (I) the size of the bob of pendulum is negligible in comparison with the length of the pendulum (II) the angular amplitude is less than 10∘ (A) Both (I) and (II) are correct (B) Both (I) and (II) are incorrect (C) Only (I) is correct (D) Only (II) is correct
›Reveal solutionSolution
For a pendulum to execute simple harmonic motion, the restoring torque must be directly proportional to the angular displacement. This requires both a small bob (so it behaves as a point mass) and a small angular amplitude (so sinθ≈θ). The correct option is (A).
The key idea is that simple harmonic motion (SHM) arises only when the restoring force (or torque) is proportional to the displacement from equilibrium. For a pendulum, the restoring torque is mgLsinθ, where θ is the angular displacement. This is proportional to sinθ, not θ itself. The approximation sinθ≈θ (in radians) holds only for small angles — typically less than about 10∘. That’s why condition (II) is necessary.
But why does the bob size matter? The formula for the period T=2πL/g assumes the pendulum is a simple pendulum: a point mass suspended by a massless, inextensible string. If the bob is large, its size is not negligible compared to the length L, and the pendulum behaves as a physical pendulum — the centre of mass shifts, and the moment of inertia changes. The motion is still oscillatory, but the simple harmonic approximation fails unless the bob is small enough to treat as a point mass. So condition (I) is also necessary.
Let’s go through the reasoning step by step.
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The condition for SHM
For any oscillating system, SHM requires a restoring force (or torque) that is directly proportional to the displacement, and opposite in direction. For a pendulum, the restoring torque about the pivot is τ=−mgLsinθ. For small θ, sinθ≈θ (in radians), so τ≈−mgLθ. This is of the form τ=−kθ, which gives SHM. The approximation is accurate to within about 1% for θ<10∘ (about 0.175 rad). So condition (II) is essential.
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Why the bob size matters …
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- KCET 2020Set A-11 markMCQQ.With regard to photoelectric effect, identify the CORRECT statement among the following : (A) Number of e− ejected increases with the increase in the intensity of incident light. (B) Energy of e− ejected increases with the increase in the intensity of incident light. (C) Number of e− ejected increases with the increase in the frequency of incident light. (D) Number of e− ejected increases with the increase in work function.
›Reveal solutionSolution
In the photoelectric effect, the number of photoelectrons ejected per second is directly proportional to the intensity of incident light (for a fixed frequency above threshold), while the kinetic energy of each electron depends only on frequency and work function — not on intensity.
The photoelectric effect is a beautiful demonstration of the particle nature of light. When light of sufficient frequency (above the threshold frequency) strikes a metal surface, it ejects electrons. The key insight is that light behaves as a stream of photons, each carrying energy hν. One photon interacts with one electron, transferring its entire energy. If that energy exceeds the work function ϕ (the minimum energy needed to free the electron), the electron is ejected with kinetic energy Kmax=hν−ϕ.
This one-photon–one-electron rule is the foundation. It tells us that the number of ejected electrons depends on how many photons strike the surface per second — that is, the intensity. The energy of each ejected electron depends on the photon energy hν, not on how many photons arrive.
Let’s examine each option carefully.
-
Option (A): Number of e− ejected increases with the increase in the intensity of incident light.
Intensity is energy per unit area per second. For monochromatic light, intensity I=nhν, where n is the number of photons per second per unit area. If you increase I while keeping frequency ν fixed, n increases. More photons mean more electrons ejected (provided ν is above threshold). This is correct.
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Option (B): Energy of e− ejected increases with the increase in the intensity of incident light.
The maximum kinetic energy of an ejected electron is Kmax=hν−ϕ. Intensity does not appear here. Changing intensity changes the number of photons, not the energy per photon. So the energy of each electron remains the same. This is false.
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Option (C): Number of e− ejected increases with the increase in the frequency of incident light. …
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