The Compton Effect

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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3 1 WHO WAS ARTHUR HOLLY COMPTON? ……………………………………………………. 4 2 WHAT IS THE COMPTON THEORY? …………………………………………………………….. 5 3 HOW DID THE COMPTON EFFECT COME ABOUT? ………..………………………………. 9 4 WHY THE COMPTON EFFECT BECAME SO USEFUL? ………..………………………………. 12 5 CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 13 6 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 15 INTRODUCTION This assignment will discuss the Compton theory which was discovered by Arthur H Compton in 1923. It will also cover how he came upon this theory and what it has done to the world today. The effect which Compton found led to him receiving a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927. Who was Arthur Holly Compton? Arthur Compton was an American physicist born in Wooster, Ohio 10th September 1892. He was most notably remembered for the Compton scatter effect however has had more history. 23rd May 1913 he discovered a laboratory method of demonstrating the Earth’s rotation. He studied X-ray scattering in 1918. “In 1919 Compton was awarded one of the first National Research Council fellowships. These gave many American physicists of the 1920's and 1930's a chance to study as they chose, and for Compton this meant X-rays. He took his fellowship to the Cavendish Laboratory in England. But the X-ray apparatus there turned out to be inadequate, so he worked on allied problems with gamma rays. He conclusively verified earlier studies by others that showed puzzling variations of wavelength with scattering angle. Back in the United States as head of the physics department in Washington University, St. Louis, Compton pursued this problem, now working again with X-rays. Since his childhood he had possessed great self-confidence, manual skill, ingenuity and patience. All these combined to help him perfect his apparatus and measure the shift of

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