That streams of electrons possess the properties of beams of waves was dis- covered early in 1927 in a large industrial laboratory in the midst of a great city, and in a small university laboratory overlooking a cold and desolate sea. The coincidence seems the more striking when one remembers that facil- ities for making this discovery had been in constant use in laboratories throughout the world for more than a quarter of a century. And yet the coincidence was not, in fact, in any way remarkable. Discoveries in physics are made when the time for making them is ripe, and not before; the stage is set, the time is ripe, and the event occurs-more often than not at widely separated places at almost the same moment
Nobel lecture december 12, 1933 On passing through an optical instrument, such as a telescope or a camera lens, a ray of light is subjec reflecting surface. The path of the rays can be constructed if we know the two simple laws which govern the changes in direction: the law of refrac- tion which was discovered by Snellius a few hundred years ago, and the law of reflection with which Archimedes was familiar more than 2,000 years ago
