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=== Quantization of matter ===
In 1922 [[Otto Stern]] and [[Walther Gerlach]] [[Stern-Gerlach experiment |demonstrated]] that the magnetic properties of silver atoms do not take a continuous range of values: the magnetic values are quantized and limited to only two possibilities.<ref name="cigar">{{Cite journal |last=Friedrich |first=Bretislav |last2=Herschbach |first2=Dudley |date=December 2003 |title=Stern and Gerlach: How a Bad Cigar Helped Reorient Atomic Physics |url=http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1650229 |journal=Physics Today |language=en |volume=56 |issue=12 |pages=53–59 |doi=10.1063/1.1650229 |issn=0031-9228}}</ref> Unlike the other then known quantum effects, this striking result involves the state of a single atom.<ref name=Whittaker/>{{rp|v2:130}}
In 1924 [[Louis de Broglie]] proposed that electrons in an atom are constrained not in "orbits" but as standing waves. In detail his solution did not work, but his hypothesis – that the electron "corpuscle" moves in the atom as a wave – spurred [[Edwin Schrodinger]] to develop a [[Schrodinger equation | wave equation]] for electrons; when applied to Hydrogen the Rydberg formula was accurately reproduced. This success launched a new fundamental understanding of our world: quantum mechanics.
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