During 1924 and 1925, de Broglie's thesis started to make the rounds of scientific circles in Europe. While visiting Paris, Victor Henri received a copy of the thesis from Langevin who suggested that he ask Schrödinger to look at it. Henri did not understand it very well, so he gave it to Schrödinger who, after two weeks, returned it again with the comment "That's rubbish!" When Henri visited Langevin again and explained what had happened, Langevin replied: "I think that Schrödinger is wrong; he must look at it again." Henri returned to Zurich and told Schrödinger "You ought to read de Broglie's thesis again. Langevin thinks this is a very good work." During this fall of 1925, Erwin Schrödinger was a visitor in the laboratory of Peter Debye in Switzerland. Debye had heard of de Broglie's thesis and asked Schrödinger if he would lead a discussion at one of their regularly scheduled group meetings on the subject. He agreed, and this time, as he worked with the concepts, he soon became an ardent fan, and led a strongly favorable presentation of these ideas in the meeting. Debye, speaking with him afterwards, was cool towards the general ideas and stated that if anything is ever going to come of it someone would need to write down a wave equation for matter. And he certainly didn't see how that was going to happen.

A wave equation for matter! That was the ticket. Schrödinger accepted the unintended challenge and took his mistress up into the Alps over Christmas and New Years, 1925-26. When he descended again in early January, he had it - a wave equation for matter. His work is the foundation of all our modern quantum theory. It is also known as wave mechanics, to distinguish it from Heisenberg's Matrix Mechanics which together form the joint foundation of modern physical theory. Schrödinger's approach is the most common method for studying quantum theory today.