ARTHUR COMPTON

PHYSICIST NAME: ARTHUR COMPTON
STUDENT NAME:Angela Mari Peralta

Biography

Arthur Compton was born in Wooster, Ohio in 1892 to Elias and Otelia Compton. They were an academic family. His father Greg was dean of Wooster University (later The College of Wooster), which Arthur attended, and also became a member of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity. His eldest brother Karl also attended Wooster University, became a physicist, and was later president of MIT. His second brother Wilson Martindale Compton also attended Wooster University and became a diplomat and president of the State College of Washington, later Washington State University. All three brothers earned their Ph.D. degrees from Princeton.

Around 1913, Arthur Compton devised a demonstration method for the Earth's rotation. In 1918, he began studying X-ray scattering. In 1922, while on faculty at Washington, Compton found that X-ray wavelengths increase due to scattering of the radiant energy by "free electrons". The scattered quanta have less energy than the quanta of the original ray. This discovery, known as the "Compton effect," or "Compton scattering" demonstrates the "particle" concept of electromagnetic radiation and earned Compton the Nobel Prize in physics in 1927. Compton developed the method for observing at the same instant individual scattered X-ray photons and the recoil electrons. In Germany, Walther Bothe and Hans Geiger independently developed a similar method.

Contributions

A phenomenon called Compton scattering, which was first explained in 1923 by the American physicist Arthur H. Compton provides additional support for the photon theory of EM radiation. When x-rays strike matter, some of the radiation is scattered just as visible light falling on a rough surface undergoes diffused reflection. Compton discovered that some of the scattered radiations have smaller frequencies (longer wavelengths) than the incident radiation and that the change in frequency depends on the angle through which the radiation is scattered. The frequency change can be explained using the photon theory of EM radiation.

He scattered x-rays from various substances and, eventually, analyzed the scattered radiation by use of a Bragg spectrometer. By the fall of 1922 he had definite experimental proof that x-rays undergo a distinct change in wavelength when scattered, the exact amount depending only on the angle through which they are scattered. Compton published this conclusion in October 1922 and within 2 months correctly accounted for it theoretically. He assumed that an x-ray - a particle of radiation - collides with an electron in the scattered, conserving both energy and momentum. This process has since become famous as the Compton Effect, a discovery for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize of 1927. The historical significance of Compton's discovery was that it forced physicists for the first time to seriously cope with Einstein's long-neglected and revolutionary 1905 light-quantum hypothesis: in the Compton Effect an x-ray behaves exactly like any other colliding particle.

Object of Interest

I chose the Arthur Compton’s contribution because I’m quite curious about the x-ray and its processes. And it is said to be that it allows a doctor to see inside the body to see where problems may occur. X-ray technology has come far and is getting less invasive. In the past doctors tend to depend on their observations on the patients, while now, the x-ray has been invented, they can have a full view on a particular body part which may have a damage or fracture. I just wonder on how the doctor sees every tiny detail in any human organ in just a piece of film.