Thornhill, de Broglie and the kinetic theory of electromagnetic radiation

TL;DR

This paper explores a classical kinetic theory approach to electromagnetic radiation, linking de Broglie's early ideas to Thornhill's derivation of black-body radiation without quantum assumptions.

Contribution

It presents a translation of de Broglie's 1922 paper highlighting its connection to Thornhill's classical derivation of black-body radiation, emphasizing a non-quantum perspective.

Findings

Derivation of Planck's distribution from Maxwellian statistics in a gas-like aether

Electromagnetic wave frequency correlates with particle mass energy, not quantum energy

Historical link between de Broglie's and Thornhill's approaches to radiation

Abstract

In 1983, Thornhill showed that Planck's energy distribution for a black-body radiation field could be derived for a gas-like aether with Maxwellian statistics. Further, it was shown that the frequency of electromagnetic waves correlates with the energy per unit mass of the particles, not with their energy, thus differing from Planck's quantum hypothesis. He pointed out that de Broglie, in a paper of 1922, was on the way to achieving this result but did not pursue the matter to its logical conclusion. Here a translation of de Broglie's paper is presented to draw attention to this point. Some brief additional comments are included also.