I’m working on something at the moment that involves talking a bit about the historical development of quantum theory, and specifically the demonstration of the wave nature of electrons. One of the famous proofs of this is the Davisson-Germer experiment, showing that electrons bouncing off a nickel target produce a diffraction pattern.
(As an aside, let me note that I love the fact that the Wikipedia stub on the experiment blatantly plagiarizes the text of the Hyperphysics page (which is screamingly obvious, in that it refers to a figure that they didn’t cut-and-paste into Wikipedia). Way to go, guys.)
Anyway, the experiment was done around 1927, and got Davisson a share of the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics (he shared it with G.P. Thomson, son of J.J. Thomson, who did his own electron diffraction experiments at around the same time). Germer, however, didn’t get any dynamite money, despite nearly equal billing.
I’ve always guessed that he must’ve died between the experiment and the prize (there are no posthumous Nobels), but he actually lived until 1971. Which raises the question of why he didn’t get a share of the Prize, given that the Nobel can be split three ways, and his name is in all the textbooks as co-author of the key experiment.
So, is there a good story behind this, or is it just another baffling Nobel omission?