He studied at the Lycee Janson de Sailly in Paris, completing his
        secondary school education in 1909. Entering the Sorbonne in Paris,
        taking a course in history, he intended to make for himself a career
        in the diplomatic service.
             At the age of 18, he graduated with an arts degree but was
        already interested in mathematics and physics. After being assigned a
        research topic in history, he chose to study for a degree in
        theoretical physics. In 1913 he was awarded his Licence es Sciences
        but before his career had progessed much further World War I broke
        out.
             During the war he was with the army's wireless telegraphy section
        and served in the station at the Eiffel Tower. He spent his spare time
        thinking about technical problems. After the war he took up research
        in mathematical physics but, also, maintained an interest in
        experimental physics. He was very much interested in his brother
        Maurice's experimental work on X-rays.
             In 1924, in his doctoral thesis "Recherches sur la th‚orie des
        quanta" (Reseatches on the quantum theodry), he put forward his theory
        of electron waves, based on work by Einstein and Planck. It proposed
        the theory for which he is best known, namely the particle-wave
        duality theory that matter has the properties of both particles and
        waves.
             In 1927, C. J. Davisson, C. H. Kunsman and L. H. Germer in the
        United States, and G. M. Thomson in Scotland, confirmed experimentally
        the wave nature of the elcetron. In 1929 he received the Nobel Prize
        for physics.
             After his doctorate, remaining at the Sorbonne, he taught there
        for two years, becoming Professor of theoretical physics at the Henri
        Poincar‚ Institute in 1928. From 1932 he was also Professor of
        theoretical physics at the Facult‚ des Sciences at the Sorbonne and
        taught there until he retired in 1962.
             From 1944 he was a member of the Bureau des Longitudes and, in
        1945, became an advisor to the French Atomic Energy Commissariat. He
        wrote many popular works which demonstrate his interest in the
        philosophical implications of modern physics. C. W. Oseen, Chairman of
        the Nobel Committee for Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of
        Sciences, described him :
             "When quite young you threw yourself into the controversy raging
        round the most profound problems in physics. You had the boldness to
        assert, without the support of any known fact, that matter had not
        only a corpuscular nature, but also a wave nature. Experiment came
        later and established the correctness of your view. You have covered
        in fresh glory a name already crowned for centuries with honour."
        

Source:  J.J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson.