Light quanta The history of the corpuscular and wave controversy in optical theory is well known. At the end of the last century physicists had no doubt as to the wave character of light, and the acceptance of the wave theory meant the rejection of the corpuscular theory. The possibility of both being correct and helpful to one another had not been much thought about and still less explored. At about this time Planck's quantum theory appeared and was soon followed in 1905 by Einstein's theory of ‘light quanta’ to explain the photo-electric effect, for which the wave theory alone had utterly failed to account. Einstein assumed that radiation exists in discrete ‘quanta’ of energy hν , where ν is the frequency; thus a quantum is a separate thing, like a corpuscle, and has a frequency associated with it, like a wave. There was a blend of the two older theories involved. This idea has been generalised by the speculations of Louis de Broglie, who pointed out the important clue given by the theory of relativity, namely, that of the identity of mass and energy, so that the conservation of mass is therefore also the conservation of energy. This suggested to him that all forms of energy (including radiation) should have an atomic structure, like matter; and that the atoms of energy are grouped round certain singular points, forming electrons, light quanta, and the like.
Light quanta The history of the corpuscular and wave controversy in optical theory is well known. At the end of the last century physicists had no doubt as to the wave character of light, and the acceptance of the wave theory meant the rejection of the corpuscular theory. The possibility of both being correct and helpful to one another had not been much thought about and still less explored. At about this time Planck's quantum theory appeared and was soon followed in 1905 by Einstein's theory of ‘light quanta’ to explain the photo-electric effect, for which the wave theory alone had utterly failed to account. Einstein assumed that radiation exists in discrete ‘quanta’ of energy hν , where ν is the frequency; thus a quantum is a separate thing, like a corpuscle, and has a frequency associated with it, like a wave. There was a blend of the two older theories involved. This idea has been generalised by the speculations of Louis de Broglie, who pointed out the important clue given by the theory of relativity, namely, that of the identity of mass and energy, so that the conservation of mass is therefore also the conservation of energy. This suggested to him that all forms of energy (including radiation) should have an atomic structure, like matter; and that the atoms of energy are grouped round certain singular points, forming electrons, light quanta, and the like.
The long history of the dispute among physicists as to whether matter is composed of particles or waves is reviewed. A turning point came at the dawn of the 20th century in the form of the de Broglie momentum-wavelength and Bohr/Planck energy frequency relations. It was on this basis that Schrödinger developed a quantum mechanical differential equation whose solution came to be known as a wave function. The Born Interpretation of these functions holds that their absolute square constitutes a probability distribution which has been used successfully to make predictions of the properties of the system under discussion. It is pointed out that the phenomenon of light refraction played a key role in the development of both Newton’s corpuscular theory of light and the competing theory of Huygens which looks upon light as consisting exclusively of waves. It is shown that Newton’s failure to predict the decrease in the speed of light as it passes from air into water was not because of his belief in the particle composition of light, but rather because he not did anticipate that the mass of a photon changes upon entering a medium of higher index of refraction n. By assuming that the energy E of light is equal pc/n, where p is the momentum of the photons and c is the speed of light in free space, it is shown that the experimental dependence of the speed the light on its wavelength as it passes through a transparent medium is derived successfully through the use of Hamilton’s Canonical Equations and Newton’s Second Law of Kinetics. It is suggested that the relationship between particles and waves can be understood by noting that the localized properties of matter exhibit themselves in experiments such as the photoelectric effect where attention can be concentrated on the behavior of a single particle. The corresponding wave properties occur when large numbers of particles are observed under exactly similar circumstances, as for example in electron diffraction. ...........
Where did we get that [equation] from? Nowhere. It is not possible to derive it from anything you know. It came out of the mind of Schrödinger. Richard Feynman De Broglie's matter waves The early struggles of physicists towards a quantum theory were mostly concerned with attempts to understand the nature of light. The traditional picture of light as a wave motion had been challenged by Planck and Einstein. They had shown that certain experimental results that were impossible to understand in terms of a wave picture could be easily explained if light was thought of as a stream of particles, now called photons. William Bragg, who, with his son, won the 1915 Nobel Prize for studies of crystal structure using X-rays, summarized this dilemma for physics by exclaiming in despair that he was teaching the corpuscular theory of light on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and the undulatory theory on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays! Physicists were still wrestling with these apparently contradictory properties of light when, in 1924, Prince Louis de Broglie (pronounced ‘de Broy’) suggested that all matter, even objects that we usually think of as particles – such as electrons – should also display wavelike behaviour! This revolutionary idea was completely unexpected and, what is more, was included by de Broglie in his Ph. D. thesis. Like most people, physicists are generally reluctant to accept any wild new idea, especially if there is not a shred of evidence to support it.
At the turn of the 20th century, Max Planck and Albert Einstein introduced the quantum theory which revolutionized our understanding of the nature of energy, in particular the nature of light energy. According to Planck, energy is absorbed or emitted from hot objects in tiny discrete bundles called quanta, and each quantum carries a precise quantity of energy which is related to the frequency of light wave. Einstein generalized Planck’s quantum theory. Einstein’s quantum theory removed a grating asymmetry in nature, between energy and matter. Louis DeBroglie said proposed that if light waves behave as particles, electrons, normally thought of as particles, ought to reciprocally behave as waves. DeBroglie provided a crucial missing piece in the quantum puzzle of discrete Bohr orbitals. Erwin Schroedinger seized DeBroglie’s brain wave. He developed a “wave mechanics” to describe the quantum world. For Schroedinger, particles are just an “illusion” of many waves; he turned waves into particles.
The overlooked narrative about the origin of quantum nature in atoms primarily stems from a close examination of two sequential events from the past. The first event was Einstein's attribution of quantum characteristics to light waves in his effort to elucidate the photoelectric effect, which ascribed both a corpuscular and wave nature to light. The second event involved de Broglie's proposal regarding the wave nature of material particles, such as electrons, suggesting that they too possessed both corpuscular and wave characteristics. This advancement led to the emergence of a new branch of mechanics, termed quantum mechanics, which posits that the energy associated with any particle cannot be continuously altered but can assume a specific or some finite value, thereby endowing energy with a quantum form. This quantum nature of matter was perceived to arise from its dual wave-particle nature. It was later revealed that this mechanics exhibits a probabilistic character, which has sparked considerable debate among physicists. Essentially, the prevailing question at that time revolved around how electrons are stabilized within atoms and how these atoms can emit light waves of specific frequencies. In addressing this question, physicists, despite their limited resources, conducted high-quality experiments during the initial three decades of the 20th century, yielding significant conclusions. However, they occasionally overlooked critical signals obtained from these experiments. Had they not done so, the current understanding of physics might have been markedly different. This paper seeks to reassess those signals that were intermittently disregarded and constructs a comprehensive narrative regarding the potential impact they could have had on the evolving mechanics of that era, as well as the alternative perspective of physics that might have emerged from them.
The overlooked narrative about the origin of quantum nature in atoms primarily stems from a close examination of two sequential events from the past. The first event was Einstein's attribution of quantum characteristics to light waves in his effort to elucidate the photoelectric effect, which ascribed both a corpuscular and wave nature to light. The second event involved de Broglie's proposal regarding the wave nature of material particles, such as electrons, suggesting that they too possessed both corpuscular and wave characteristics. This advancement led to the emergence of a new branch of mechanics, termed quantum mechanics, which posits that the energy associated with any particle cannot be continuously altered but can assume a specific or some finite value, thereby endowing energy with a quantum form. This quantum nature of matter was perceived to arise from its dual wave-particle nature. It was later revealed that this mechanics exhibits a probabilistic character, which has sparked considerable debate among physicists. Essentially, the prevailing question at that time revolved around how electrons are stabilized within atoms and how these atoms can emit light waves of specific frequencies. In addressing this question, physicists, despite their limited resources, conducted high-quality experiments during the initial three decades of the 20th century, yielding significant conclusions. However, they occasionally overlooked critical signals obtained from these experiments. Had they not done so, the current understanding of physics might have been markedly different. This paper seeks to reassess those signals that were intermittently disregarded and constructs a comprehensive narrative regarding the potential impact they could have had on the evolving mechanics of that era, as well as the alternative perspective of physics that might have emerged from them.
The overlooked narrative about the origin of quantum nature in atoms primarily stems from a close examination of two sequential events from the past. The first event was Einstein's attribution of quantum characteristics to light waves in his effort to elucidate the photoelectric effect, which ascribed both a corpuscular and wave nature to light. The second event involved de Broglie's proposal regarding the wave nature of material particles, such as electrons, suggesting that they too possessed both corpuscular and wave characteristics. This advancement led to the emergence of a new branch of mechanics, termed quantum mechanics, which posits that the energy associated with any particle cannot be continuously altered but can assume a specific or some finite value, thereby endowing energy with a quantum form. This quantum nature of matter was perceived to arise from its dual wave-particle nature. It was later revealed that this mechanics exhibits a probabilistic character, which has sparked considerable debate among physicists. Essentially, the prevailing question at that time revolved around how electrons are stabilized within atoms and how these atoms can emit light waves of specific frequencies. In addressing this question, physicists, despite their limited resources, conducted high-quality experiments during the initial three decades of the 20th century, yielding significant conclusions. However, they occasionally overlooked critical signals obtained from these experiments. Had they not done so, the current understanding of physics might have been markedly different. This paper seeks to reassess those signals that were intermittently disregarded and constructs a comprehensive narrative regarding the potential impact they could have had on the evolving mechanics of that era, as well as the alternative perspective of physics that might have emerged from them.