Paul Drude was a German physicist best known for his contributions to the field of solid-state physics and for the Drude model of electrical conduction in metals. Born on December 13, 1863, and passing away on July 5, 1906, he developed his model in the early 20th century, which describes how electrons move in a metal.
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Paul Drude modeled electrical conduction in metals through mobile charge carriers undergoing repeated collisions. In the modern relaxation-time form, an electric field accelerates the carriers between momentum-randomizing events, giving electrical conductivity . Here is carrier number density, a momentum-relaxation time and the carrier mass. The Drude model makes a useful connection between microscopic scattering and macroscopic resistance, while its classical statistics cannot explain every thermal or electronic property of a metal.[ref]
Zur Elektronentheorie der Metalle by Paul Drude. Annalen der Physik, 1900, electron theory of metallic conduction; equation written in modern relaxation-time notation
Portrait of Paul Drude
. Smithsonian Institution Libraries (source); photographer not specified. Public domain in countries with copyright term life plus 70 years or fewer (Commons PD-old). Source usage terms, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.