Does Conservation of Energy Hold in Atomic Processes?

Abstract

THE strict validity of the law of conservation of energy in atomic processes was not seriously questioned until 1924, when Bohr, Kramers and Slater, in order to make progress with the serious conflict then existing between the wave and corpuscular aspects of light, put forward a theory denying it1. This theory (which we shall refer to as the B.K.S. theory) postulates that a field of radiation is continually emitted by an atomic system in an excited state, instead of being emitted only when the system makes a transition to a state of lower energy. This field of radiation falling on a second atom gives it a probability of making a transition to a state of higher energy, provided the frequency of the radiation is suitable. The theory makes no coincidences between the occurrence of transitions of the second atom to states of higher energy and the occurrence of transitions of the first atom to states of lower energy, but apart from this question of coincidences, it gives results in agreement with those of other theories of radiation. Thus the new theory gives no conservation of energy for individual atomic processes, though it gives statistical conservation when large numbers of atomic processes take place.