Reverse Engineering the de Broglie Wave

Daniel Shanahan
PO Box 301, Cleveland, Queensland 4163, Australia
June 3, 2021

Abstract
By subjecting the de Broglie wave to an inverse Lorentz transforma-
tion, an attempt is made to return this mysterious wave to a form that
would be physically viable in the rest frame of the particle. It is found
that the de Broglie wave cannot be the wave contemplated by de Broglie,
but might instead be explained as the modulation (or dephasing) of an
underlying wave structure moving at the velocity of the particle. Af-
ter showing that there is signi…cant support for this explanation in de
Broglie’s own thesis of 1924, consideration is given to the implications of
such a reinterpretation of the wave for relativity, quantum mechanics and
particle structure.

Keywords matter wave wave-particle duality simultaneity wave

packet Lorentz invariance

1 Introduction
There is a much-quoted passage in de Broglie’s famous thesis of 1924 that cap-
tures very nicely his conception of the wave that we now know as the de Broglie
or matter wave:

The particle glides on its wave, so that the internal vibration of

the particle remains in phase with the vibration of the wave at the
point where it …nds itself (de Broglie [1], Chap. I, Sect. I).1

But as this wave was understood by de Broglie, it has a velocity that is

superluminal and becomes in…nite as the particle comes to rest. And apart
from the conjunction of phase, to which de Broglie refers above, there seems to
be no physical nexus between the superluminal wave and the subluminal particle
that it is said to be “piloting”.
Yet de Broglie’s insight that a massive particle has associated wave charac-
teristics was of crucial importance to the formulation of quantum mechanics.
1 For Enlish translations of de Broglie’s thesis, see Kracklauer [2], and Haslett [3].

1
It was this that allowed all particles, massive and massless, to be treated as
evolving and interacting in similar wave-like manner. Without the de Broglie
wave, there could not have been a Schrödinger equation (see, for instance, Bloch
[4]).
Nor can it be doubted that a massive particle is indeed associated in some
way with some form of wave-like disturbance. As was predicted by de Broglie
(de Broglie [5] and [6]), and soon con…rmed experimentally (Davisson and Ger-
mer [7] and Thompson [8]), a massive particle scatters in accordance with a
wave number (the de Broglie wave number dB ) related to its momentum p by
the de Broglie relation,

p=~ dB ; (1)
where ~ is the reduced Planck constant.
It is also well-established that a massive particle has an associated frequency
(the Einstein frequency ! E ), which is given in terms of its energy E by the
Planck-Einstein relation,
E = ~! E ; (2)
and provides a consistent scheme relating energies and binding energies to the
frequencies of emitted and captured photons.
However, for a particle moving at velocity v, the wave,

dB = ei(!E t dB x)
; (3)

implied by frequency ! E and wave number dB has the velocity,

!E E c2
vdB = = = ; (4)
dB p v
which exceeds the limiting velocity c of light.
De Broglie was able to recover the classical velocity of the particle by locating
it within a suitably contrived superposition of waves of di¤ering frequencies (de
Broglie [1], Chap. I, Sect. II). But such a wave packet spreads rapidly with
time and very soon the particle could be almost anywhere at all.
It is also a matter for suspicion that the de Broglie wave is not itself a
covariant relativistic object. The wave is a creature of relativity - speci…cally,
as de Broglie himself stressed, a consequence of the relativity of simultaneity
- but it does not display the full e¤ects of a Lorentz transformation. The
de Broglie wave does incorporate the changes in frequency and simultaneity
predicted by that transformation, but for the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction, it
is necessary to look to the associated particle. There is, with respect, something
misbegotten in this marriage of wave and particle.
It would thus seem desirable to scrutinize very carefully the provenance of
this unsatisfactory wave. But if we start with de Broglie’s initial assumptions

2
and attempt to follow him through the steps of his derivation as they were
presented in the thesis [1], we soon run into a problem - as I will now show2 .

2 The “periodic phenomenon”

De Broglie began by considering how the idea of a quantum of energy might be
introduced into the dynamics of relativity. He said (de Broglie [1], Chap. I,
Sect. I):

It seems to us that the fundamental idea of the theory of the

quantum is the impossibility of depicting an isolated quantity of
energy that is not accompanied by a certain frequency.

He showed that if the Planck-Einstein relation,

E=h ; (5)

for the photon were extended to a massive particle and equated with Einstein’s
statement,
E = mc2 ;
of the equivalence of mass and energy, the particle could be associated in its
rest frame with a “periodic phenomenon” of frequency 0 or, when expressed
as an angular frequency,
mc2
!0 = 2 0 = ;
~
where m is the rest mass of the particle and ~ is again the reduced Planck
constant.
De Broglie described this periodic phenomenon as varying sinusoidally in
time. Of its spatial extension, he asked:

Must we suppose that this periodic phenomenon occurs in the

interior of the energy packet? This is not at all necessary. The
results of [an analysis in Minkowski spacetime] will show that it is
spread out over an extended space. Moreover, what must we under-
stand by the interior of a parcel of energy? An electron is for us the
archetype of an isolated parcel of energy, which we believe, perhaps
incorrectly, we know well. But, by received wisdom, the energy of
an electron is spread over all space with a strong concentration in
a very small region, but otherwise whose properties are very poorly
known. What makes an electron an atom of energy is not that it
2 De Broglie’s proposals were originally presented in a series of papers published during

1922 and 1923 (de Broglie [5], [6], and [9] to [12]). Ironically, his initial proposal was that the
photon is massive (de Broglie [9] and [10] ). It was by extension of that proposal that mass
became wave-like (de Broglie [11]). See generally, Jammer [13], pp. 243-247, Medicus [14],
Lochak [15], and Mehra and Rechenberg [16], Chap. V.4)

3
 occupies only a small region in space .... it occupies all space, but
the fact that it is indivisible, that it constitutes a unit.
(de Broglie [1], Chap. I, Sect I, following here Kracklauer [2]).

So far so good, but de Broglie provided no further details of this periodic

phenomenon and, in concluding the thesis, made it clear that this omission was
intentional. He explained that because the theory was “not entirely precise”he
had “left intentionally vague .... the de…nitions of phase waves and the periodic
phenomena for which such waves are a realization” (de Broglie [1], Summary
and conclusions).
As I will show later in this paper, there are indications elsewhere in the
thesis that de Broglie thought of this spatially extended periodic phenomenon
as some form of stationary wave. There is also support for that view in a
paper published in 1925 (de Broglie [17]) in which he refers to a standing wave
comprising incoming and outgoing spherical waves (as discussed by Brown and
Martins [18]). Further support can be found in his later writings, including his
report to the Solvay Conference of 1927 (Bacciagaluppi and Valentini [19], p.
341), his Nobel acceptance address of 1929 (de Broglie [20]) and other papers
(de Broglie [21] and [22], Chap. 3).
Other commentators have likewise assumed that de Broglie was contemplat-
ing here a standing wave (notably Lochak [15], Brown and Martins [18], and
Kastner [23]). Indeed it is di¢ cult to imagine how this spatially extended os-
cillatory phenomenon could be anything other than some species of stationary
waveform in the rest frame of the particle.
It is understandable that the young doctoral candidate might have been re-
luctant to commit to any particular form of antecedent wave structure. He was
already in dangerously uncharted territory with his proposal that solid matter
might be wave-like. But having failed to accord mathematical form to his
periodic phenomenon, de Broglie had nothing that he could Lorentz transform
when he went on to consider how the frequency ! 0 would be manifested in an
inertial frame in which the particle is moving.
He turned instead to a related, but nonetheless quite distinct, problem that
he said had intrigued him for some time. This was the contrast between the
frequency ! 0 of a moving particle as observed by a stationary observer and the
1
lower frequency ! 0 , that this observer believes is actually occurring in the
1
inertial frame of the moving particle ( being the Lorentz factor (1 v 2 =c2 ) 2 ).
And it is here, I suggest, that things went awry. To explain these frequencies,
de Broglie purported to prove a theorem that he referred to as the theorem of
the harmony of phases, which he stated as follows:

The periodic phenomenon connected to a moving body whose

frequency is for the …xed observer equal to 1 ! 0 appears to him to
be constantly in phase with a wave of frequency ! 0 emitted in the

4
 same direction as the moving body, and with the velocity c2 =v (de
Broglie [1], Chap. I, Sect. I).

On an unwary reading of these words, it may seem that the “periodic phe-
nomenon connected to a moving body” to which de Broglie is referring here
is the periodic phenomenon that he had earlier described as surrounding the
particle in its rest frame. But that is not so. All that de Broglie is now
contemplating is an oscillation at a single point in that extended periodic phe-
nomenon, namely the position of the particle, which he took to be point-like.

Thus, in the proof of his harmony of phases theorem, all that de Broglie
actually proved was that if there were a wave accompanying a moving and
oscillating point-like particle and this wave were to have the same phase as that
particle at the position of the particle, that wave would necessarily have the
form,
ei(!E t dB x) ;
and thus the velocity c2 =v of the de Broglie wave, or as he called it at the time,
the “phase wave”.
De Broglie neither proved the existence of this superluminal wave, nor sug-
gested why it should be thought to exist. He gave no consideration to how such
a wave might be related to the spatially extended periodic phenomenon that he
had earlier described as existing in the rest frame of the particle.
Without explaining why he did so, de Broglie disregarded his earlier dis-
cussion of that extended waveform. Perhaps he con‡ated the extended wave
with the point-like oscillation, but whatever the case, he changed horses in mid-
stream. There is a discontinuity in the derivation through which it would be
inappropriate to follow him.
On the other hand, that discontinuity need not itself mean that the inde-
pendent wave of superluminal velocity described by de Broglie does not in fact
exist. After all, this understanding of the de Broglie wave has served physics
well for nearly a century. But if such a superluminal wave does accompany
a moving particle, it should be possible to work backwards from that wave to
ascertain what form the wave could have taken in the rest frame of the particle.

3 The reverse engineering

Commencing, not with de Broglie’s initial assumptions, but with his …nal result,
I will attempt to “reverse engineer”3 the de Broglie wave by subjecting the wave
to an inverse Lorentz transformation.
3 Not here, of course, that questionable deconstruction by which one manufacturer appro-

priates the ideas of another, but a methodology by which the design of a product may be
enhanced by the elimination of inappropriate or redundant components - a practice regulated
in relation to computer programs, for instance, by the implementation of European Union
Directive 2009/24/EC

5
 I make two preliminary points. The …rst is that since I will be questioning
the identity of a wave that has been taken for granted since 1924, I will be pro-
ceeding with what may seem a tedious attention to detail. The second is that it
will eventually be necessary to confront an inconsistency in this exercise, namely
that I will be subjecting a superluminal wave to a relativistic transformation
that assumes that all physical in‡uences propagate ultimately at the velocity c
of light.
But let us put that problem aside for the moment. On applying the inverse
Lorentz transformation,

x0 = (x + vt) ;
vx
t0 = t+ 2 ;
c
to the de Broglie wave of Eqn. (3), written now as,
0 0
dB = ei(!E t dB x )
;

this wave becomes in the rest frame of the particle,

2
0 = ei[!E (t+vx=c ) dB (x+vt)]
: (6)

But since,

!E = !0 ; (7)
and from Eqns. (4) and (7),
v
dB = !0 ; (8)
c2
wave (6) reduces to the oscillation,

0 = ei!0 t ; (9)

which varies sinusoidally in time, but not at all in space.

This oscillation might be understood in either of two ways - as a point
oscillation having no spatial extension or, at a stretch, as a standing wave that
is spatially extended but has no spatial variation.
Under the …rst interpretation - the oscillation without spatial extension - all
we would have to work with is an oscillating point (or point particle), which
when considered from an inertial frame in which the point is moving could
only become a moving and oscillating point. To see what happens when this
oscillating point is Lorentz transformed, it must …rst be given a location, let us
say at the point (x0 ; y0 ; z0 ) as,

[x0 ; y0 ; z0 ] ei!0 t ; (10)

6
(where [x; y; z] is the Dirac delta function).
Under the Lorentz transformation,

x0 = (x vt) ;
(11)
vx
t0 = t ;
c2
this oscillating point becomes, with the aid of Eqns. (7) and (8),

[(x0 vt); y0 ; z0 ] ei(!E t dB x)

; (12)

where the second factor certainly has the wave characteristics of the de Broglie
wave, but is describing, not a wave, but the evolution in phase of a moving and
oscillating point. Let us reject this interpretation and move on to the second
possibility
According to that interpretation, Eqn. (9) does describe a spatially extended
oscillation, but it is a physically impossible standing wave of the form,

0 (x; y; z; t) = Aei!0 t ; (13)

which varies sinusoidally in time but has everywhere the same phase and the
same amplitude, here designated A. This nodeless wave has an unlimited
wavelength and if considered as a superposition of counter-propagating waves,
those constituent waves would be of in…nite velocity.
From a facile application of the Lorentz transformation (3), it might seem
that if standing wave (13) were observed from an inertial frame in which the
particle is moving, it would acquire the form,

v (x; y; z; t) = Aei(!E t dB x)
; (14)

in which case the second factor,

ei(!E t dB x)
;

would again replicate the wave characteristics of the de Broglie wave.

But there are here two problems. One is that although the second factor
in (14) has the wave characteristics of the de Broglie wave, it is describing,
not the independent wave contemplated by de Broglie, but the modulation or
dephasing4 of standing wave (13) which in (14) has become a carrier wave.
The second di¢ culty is that we have come to the inconsistency mentioned
at the beginning of this section. It is inappropriate to apply the Lorentz
transformation to a superluminal wave or a structure such as (13), that supposes
4 In the parlance of wave theory, a modulation, but also a beat or a dephasing, the last

being more indicative of its origin in the failure of simultaneity.

7
in‡uences of superluminal velocity. If there existed some force or other e¤ect
with some other velocity, let us say u, the Lorentz factor for that e¤ect would
be,
v2 1
(u) = (1 ) 2; (15)
u2
and if u were in…nite, as implied by a nodeless standing wave having no spatial
variation, would be unity and electromagnetic and other in‡uences would be
instantaneous. In e¤ect, everything would happen at once.
Thus neither of the interpretations of oscillation (9) suggested above is con-
sistent with de Broglie’s conclusion that his phase wave is an independent wave-
form. According to the …rst interpretation, there is no wave at all. According
to the second, there is a wave, but it is a physically impossible standing wave,
from which the de Broglie wave emerges not as an independent wave but as the
modulation of that physically impossible underlying wave.
These di¢ culties cannot be avoided by stipulating that the particle is lo-
cated within a superposition of alternative states, as proposed by de Broglie (de
Broglie [1], Chap. I, Sect. II). Under the …rst interpretation, there would be
a superposition, not of waves, but of particle histories, and under the second, a
superposition of physically impossible modulated carrier waves.
Yet the second of these interpretations suggests that the de Broglie wave
might be successfully “re-engineered” as a modulation if we could interpret
a massive particle as comprising or including a form of standing wave that
does make physical sense. To do this, it would be necessary to impose upon
oscillation (9), a spatial variation consistent with special relativity.
Before considering how that might be achieved, I will …rst show, in the
next two sections, that there is signi…cant support for the interpretation of the
de Broglie wave as such a modulation in the famous thesis itself, both in a
mechanical model that I will describe in the next section, and in de Broglie’s
treatment of the wave in Minkowski spacetime, which I will discuss in Sect. 5.

4 A mechanical contraption
Having proposed a wave of superluminal velocity, de Broglie needed to address
the apparent con‡ict with special relativity. His ultimate solution - the solution
that would enter into quantum mechanics - was the notion of a wave packet (de
Broglie [1], Chap. I, Sect. II). However, he also introduced a simple mechanical
model to demonstrate that a superluminal wave need not be in con‡ict with
special relativity provided the velocity of energy transport is not greater than
c.
I will quote de Broglie at length here. It is important to see that what he is
actually modelling is a standing wave, and that when he uses the term “phase
wave”, he is referring not to a wave, but to the dephasing of a wave. I follow
here the translation by Haslett [3]:

8
 It is necessary now to re‡ect on the nature of the wave whose
existence we have been led to conceive. The fact that its speed
c2 =v is necessarily greater than c .... shows that it cannot be a wave
that carries energy. Our theorem reveals to us, moreover, that it
represents the distribution in space of the phase of a phenomenon;
it is a “phase wave”.
To be more precise on this point, we shall employ a mechanical
comparison that is a bit crude, but will catch the imagination. Con-
sider a large horizontal circular disk, from which identical weights
are suspended on springs. Let the number of such systems per unit
area, i.e., their density, diminish rapidly as one moves out from the
centre of the disk so that there is a high concentration at the centre.
All the weights on springs have the same period. Let us set them in
motion with identical amplitudes and phases. The surface passing
through the centre of gravity of the weights would be a plane oscil-
lating up and down. This ensemble of systems is a crude analogue
to a parcel of energy as we imagine it to be.
The description we have given corresponds to that of an observer
at rest with the disk. Were another observer moving uniformly with
velocity v with respect to the disk to observe the disk, each weight
would appear to him to be a clock exhibiting Einstein retardation.
Further, by cause of Lorentz contraction, the disk with its distribu-
tion of weights on springs is no longer isotropic about the centre.
But the central point here .... is that there is a dephasing of
the motion of the weights. If, at a given moment in time, a …xed
observer considers the geometric location of the centres of mass of
the various weights, he gets a cylindrical surface in a horizontal
direction for which vertical slices parallel to the motion of the disk
are sinusoids. This surface corresponds, in the case we envision,
to our phase wave, for which, in accord with our general theorem,
there is a surface moving with velocity c2 =v parallel to the disk and
having a frequency of vibration on the …xed abscissa p equal to that
of a proper oscillation of a spring multiplied by 1= 1 v 2 =c2 . One
sees clearly from this example (which is our reason to pursue it) why
a phase wave transports phase, but not energy.
(de Broglie [1], Chap. I, Sect. I)

De Broglie provided no drawing of this array of oscillating springs, but I have

imagined it from his description in Fig.1. (For another depiction, see Baylis [24],
Fig. 1). If it is assumed that the springs have been pre-arranged to oscillate in
unison, there need be no correlating in‡uence moving instantaneously from one
spring to the next, and accordingly, no o¤ence to special relativity. However,
the same cannot be said of the standing wave that is being modelling by the
springs. In its rest frame, this wave is the impossibly nodeless standing wave
of Sect. 3 of this paper.

9
Figure 1: De Broglie’s array of oscillating springs. The sinusoidal e¤ ect in the
moving array is a consequence of the failure of simultaneity. This sinusoidal
"wave" is the de Broglie wave, not an independent wave as usually supposed, but
as described by de Broglie himself, a dephasing of the standing wave modelled
by the array of oscillating springs.

Nonetheless, de Broglie provided by this mechanical model, a compelling

illustration of a relativistically induced modulation having the wave character-
istics of the de Broglie wave. To an observer for whom the disk is moving, the
weights no longer oscillate in unison, but in sequence, those ahead lagging in
phase those behind. Because the springs are in harmonic motion, the weights
de…ne a sinusoidal surface, and the e¤ect is of a sinusoidal wave advancing
through the array in its direction of motion.
To see that this “wave” must have a velocity greater than that of light, it
is only necessary to notice that as the disk slows to a stop, the velocity of the
sinusoidal e¤ect approaches in…nity.
De Broglie says in the passage above that this sinusoidal “phase wave” cor-
responds to the wave derived from his “theorem”, that is to say, the theorem
of the harmony of phases. He concludes with the assertion that “a phase wave
transports phase, but not energy”. Thus he is not using the term “phase wave”,
as it would more usually be understood, to describe an unmodulated wave, for
instance an unmodulated electromagnetic wave that does transport energy (and
possibly, information). To de Broglie, a phase wave is clearly, as he says above,
a dephasing (le déphasage).
Such a dephasing is not itself a wave. It is merely one factor in the descrip-
tion of a wave. What de Broglie is contemplating here is not the independent
wave that he seems to have supposed elsewhere. Nor is it then, the de Broglie
wave that has been known to quantum mechanics since 1924.
One other feature of this model is signi…cant. When de Broglie speci…es in
the passage above that the density of the springs is concentrated at the centre

10
of the array and diminishes rapidly from the centre, he seems to have in mind,
not simply a standing wave, but a standing wave that becomes attenuated in
amplitude in the manner of a central …eld such as the Coulomb …eld of the
electron.

5 In Minkowski spacetime
De Broglie sought to demonstrate in a spacetime diagram (de Broglie [1], Chap.
I, Sect. III), the results that he believed he had obtained analytically from his
theorem of the harmony of phases. His spacetime diagram is reproduced here
in a modi…ed form as Fig. 2.
But what this diagram again reveals is that the “phase wave” is not a wave
in its own right, but the relativistically induced dephasing or modulation of an
underlying standing wave.
The unprimed (x, ct) coordinates in Fig. 2 are those of a stationary observer,
while the primed (x0 , ct0 ) coordinates represent the inertial frame of a particle
that is moving to the right at the velocity v along a world line that follows the
primed ct0 axis. The ct0 and x0 axes are thus inclined at 1 = arctan c=v and
2 = arctan v=c, respectively, to the x axis. The line OD de…nes the adjacent
edge of the light cone.

The four equally spaced parallel lines in the drawing are successive represen-
tations of what de Broglie referred to as “equiphase spaces”(espaces équiphases),
which he associated with the evolution of the periodic phenomenon as follows:

If the space surrounding the particle is the site of a periodic

phenomenon, the state of the space will again be the same for the
moving observer each time at the .... proper period T0 = 1= 0 ....
(de Broglie [1], Chap. I, Sect. III).

Thus the four lines are representations of a three-dimensional space in which

the three-dimensional periodic phenomenon has reached a particular phase, for
instance a maxima. De Broglie described these equiphase spaces as “surround-
ing the particle”, but as they were depicted in de Broglie’s thesis, the four lines
were not centred, as would be natural, on the world line of the particle. For
the sake of clarity, they have been repositioned in Fig. 2 so that they have the
same inclination to the x axis as in the thesis, but are centred on the world line
of the particle.
Being parallel to the x0 axis, there can be no doubt that in the rest frame of
the particle, the four lines describe the evolving phase of some form of standing
wave. However, from the inclination of these same four lines to the x axis,
it is apparent that, from the standpoint of an observer in the (x, ct) frame,
those parts of the wave ahead of the moving particle are lagging in phase those

11
Figure 2: The world line of a particle moving at velocity v follows the ct0 axis.
Surrounding the particle is a “periodic phenomenon” represented by parallel
“equiphase” lines (of which only four are shown). That these lines are parallel
to the x0 axis shows that in the primed ( x0 , ct0 ) frame the lines represent the
evolution in time of a standing wave. But the inclination of the lines to the x
axis shows that as a consequence of the relativity of simultaneity, the standing
wave has su¤ ered in the unprimed ( x, ct) frame, a dephasing, which is evolving
along the x axis at the superluminal velocity c2 =v. This dephasing is the de
Broglie wave, considered by de Broglie to be an independent wave, but shown by
his own drawing to be the modulation of a relativistically-transformed standing
wave.

behind. As de Broglie explained, this dephasing is a consequence of the failure

of simultaneity induced by the Lorentz transformation.
For the stationary observer, the distance aa0 shown in Fig. 2 is exactly c,
from which the velocity of the dephasing along the x axis is thus, as de Broglie
calculated,
c2
vdB = a0 a1 = aa0 cot 2 = ;
v
which is the velocity of the de Broglie wave, but is clearly here again the velocity,
not of an independent wave, but of the relativistically-induced dephasing of the
standing wave.

6 Reinterpreting the de Broglie wave

My attempt at reverse engineering the de Broglie wave in Sect. 3 showed that
the independent wave supposed by de Broglie makes no more sense in the rest

12
frame of the particle than it does as a superluminal wave in an inertial frame
in which the particle is moving.
But as de Broglie’s own thesis has demonstrated, a wave factor with the
characteristics of the de Broglie wave emerges as a modulation - a dephasing -
from the Lorentz transformation of a standing wave. In de Broglie’s mechanical
model and derivation in spacetime, that standing wave was inconsistent with
special relativity, but such a dephasing will arise from the transformation of
any standing wave at all including a waveform that is consistent with special
relativity.
Consistency with special relativity requires that c serve, not only as a limiting
velocity for the transport of energy and information, but as the actual velocity
of whatever forces and other in‡uences are involved in the constitution of the
particle in question (see Lorentz [25], and for the gravitational force, Poincaré
[26]).
That c has this fundamental signi…cance was implicit in Einstein’s 1905
derivation of the Lorentz transformation from a comparison of light signals
propagating longitudinally and transversely with respect to a moving measur-
ing rod. In e¤ect, Einstein assimilated the changes experienced in the inertial
frame of the rod to the corresponding variations in a superposition of counter-
propagating light waves (Einstein [27], and see van der Mark [28] and Shanahan
[29]). If the particles within the rod, and the forces between those particles, ac-
tually comprise wave-like in‡uences evolving at the velocity c, the identi…cation
of matter with wave becomes explicit, and the argument for the fundamental
signi…cance of c, correspondingly more insistent.
Where a velocity di¤ers from c, as do those for example of massive objects,
sound waves, and refracted light, it must be assumed the velocity in question
is the net e¤ect of underlying in‡uences that do evolve at velocity c. Unlike c,
such a velocity does not remain unchanged from one inertial frame to the next
but, as Einstein also explained in 1905 [27], transforms in accordance with the
relativistic formula for the composition of velocities.
Consider then the spatially extended wave,

R(x; y; z) ei!0 t ; (16)

which has the frequency ! 0 of oscillation (9), but for which we suppose nothing
at this stage regarding its spatial variation R(x; y; z), other than to stipulate
that the wave-like in‡uences from which it is composed evolve at the velocity c.
I will say something more of R(x; y; z) below, but in the meantime, we might
imagine that R(x; y; z) describes the spatial variation of some form of soliton,
or is a solution of the Helmholtz equation, or is something else altogether.
Following a boost in the x-direction, and with the assistance of Eqns. (7)
and (8), wave (16) becomes the moving wave,

R( (x vt) ; y; z) ei(!E t dB x)
; (17)

13
in which R(x; y; z) has become the Lorentz-contracted carrier wave,

R( (x vt) ; y; z); (18)

which is moving in the x-direction at the velocity v, while the second factor,

ei(!E t dB x)
;

is a modulation that has the wave characteristics of the de Broglie wave and
the form of a transverse plane wave advancing through the carrier wave at the
superluminal velocity c2 =v.
Thus to re-engineer the de Broglie wave in a manner consistent with special
relativity, it is only necessary that we begin with a wave structure consistent with
special relativity, and that we …nish, not with a wave, but with the modulation
of a wave. And that, I suggest, is the path that de Broglie might himself have
taken had he stayed with his initial assumption that the particle is surrounded
in its rest frame by a periodic phenomenon. On endowing that phenomenon
with a mathematical form consistent with special relativity and subjecting it to
a Lorentz transformation, he would have found that the wave he took to be an
independent wave was in fact the modulation of a underlying wave structure.

7 Discussion
It is not at all an original thought that the de Broglie wave could be the modula-
tion of an underlying wave structure. This interpretation of the wave has been
discovered and rediscovered many times since 1924, and now has a “literature”
that includes Mellen [30], Wignall [31], Horodecki [32], particularly Wol¤ [33],
p. 240-241, [34] and [35], Kracklauer [36], de la Peña and Cetto [37], Masreliez
[38], Haisch and Rueda [39], Zheng-Johansson and Johansson [40], Baylis [24]5 ,
Menon [42], Macken [43], Chap. 1, Appendix A, Keilman [44], Kastner [23],
Shanahan [29], [45] and [46], and last, but not least, van der Mark [28].
Yet what seems to have gone largely unremarked is the support for this
interpretation to be found in de Broglie’s own thesis. De Broglie identi…ed his
phase wave as a dephasing, and in his spacetime diagram, it can be seen to be
exactly that. It can also be seen, with due aid of hindsight and the assistance I
hope of my attempt at reverse engineering the wave, how it was possible for de
Broglie to miss its true nature. In the absence of a mathematical description
of the underlying periodic phenomenon, and through a misplaced reliance on
his theorem of the harmony of phases, de Broglie was led to conclude that the
wave is an independent wave of superluminal velocity.
5 Baylis [24] has been dismissed (see Shuler [41]) as being no more than a rediscovery

that the de Broglie wave is a relativistic e¤ect. Clearly the wave is a relativistic e¤ect -
a consequence of the failure of simultaneity - but the criticism misses the point that when
interpreted as a modulation, the wave is no longer the particular relativistic e¤ect supposed
by its interpretation as an independent wave of superluminal velocity.

14
 Nor has appropriate recognition been given as yet to the explanatory possi-
bilities provided by the interpretation espoused here. Its immediate advantage
is that it makes sense of a “wave”that would otherwise make no physical sense
at all. Considered as a modulation, this otherwise anomalous phenomenon
becomes a straightforward consequence of the relativity of simultaneity6 . Con-
sistency with special relativity is achieved, not only because the superluminal
velocity of such a modulation is not that of energy or information transport,
but also because it is the full modulated wave structure, rather than its mod-
ulation by the de Broglie wave, that is the Lorentz covariant relativistic object
(Shanahan [29]).
There are also implications here for quantum mechanics. By providing a
particle with a well-de…ned trajectory, whilst avoiding the necessity of locating
it within an uncertainly spreading wave packet, the existence of the underly-
ing structure favours a realist interpretation of quantum mechanics in which a
particle has at all times a well de…ned position and trajectory.
A further consequence for quantum mechanics is that its wave equations
for massive particles, including not only (as mentioned above) the Schrödinger
equation, but also the Klein-Gordon, Pauli and Dirac equations, all of which
were conceived as equations for the de Broglie wave (see Bloch [4] and Dirac
[47]), become equations, not for a wave, but for the modulation of a wave (see
Shanahan [29] and [46]). While the currently prevailing interpretation of the
de Broglie wave has served quantum mechanics well for nearly a century, it has
owed its utility to the correspondence between, on the one hand, the frequency
and wave number of the wave, and on the other, the energy and momentum,
respectively, of the associated particle. But it is the existence of the underlying
wave structure that makes sense of that correspondence, and it is the frequency
! 0 of the stationary wave that corresponds to the rest mass of the particle.
The existence of that underlying wave structure would suggest a resolution of
the issue of wave-particle duality in favour of a wave that acts as a particle rather
than vice versa. And this would be consistent in turn with the equivalence of
the energies of mass and electromagnetic radiation, and the compliance of both
with the Planck-Einstein relation (Eqn. (2) ). As van der Mark and ’t Hooft
observed in their aptly entitled paper, “Light is Heavy”[48], it is not possible to
ascertain by external inspection whether the energy in a sealed box is due to the
inclusion of matter or to the entrainment of counter-propagating photons. And
there is not only equivalence here, but the interchangeability illustrated by the
annihilation of positronium into oppositely directed photons. From equivalence
and interchangeability, it is but a short step to the identity of matter and wave
proposed above.
6 And, as Ruth Kastner has observed, it is possible to reverse the usual arrow of explantion

and argue that the relativity of simultaneity is an e¤ect of de Broglie waves [23]. See also
Shanahan [45].

15
8 Conclusion
Einstein wrote at the time that de Broglie had “uncovered a corner of the great
veil” when he showed how massive particles might be wave-like (Einstein [49]).
If, as contended in this paper, de Broglie’s “phase wave”is evidence of a deeper
wave structure, it may well be that the implications of de Broglie’s insight are
yet to be fully realized.
And as I have endeavoured to show in this paper, it is all there in the famous
thesis - a document deserving of close scrutiny.

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19