American physicist who discovered the Compton effect — the increase in wavelength when X-rays scatter off electrons — definitively establishing the particle nature of light.
Compton effect (1923): X-rays scattered by electrons increase in wavelength — demonstrating that photons have momentum and behave as particles. This settled the wave-particle debate in favor of quantum theory. Nobel Prize in Physics (1927). Director of the Metallurgical Laboratory, Manhattan Project: oversaw the first nuclear reactor (Chicago Pile-1).
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