Jonathan Allday
From a historical point of view, a distinction can be drawn between ‘old quantum theory’ and the full quantum theory that we now use. Old quantum theory was in essence a patchwork, cobbled together by incorporating some quantum ideas into essentially classical physics. The work of Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Sommerfeld can be bracketed as old quantum theory. This classification is not meant to undermine the tremendous achievement that old quantum theory represents, but simply to underline its standing as a stage on the way to a fully formed quantum theory, which emerged from the work of Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Born, and Dirac. The development of the photon concept is a key example of a radically new idea gradually gaining acceptance. The process works via a growing realization that more and more things can be explained in the context of the photon model.
CRC Press eBooks•Sep 21, 2022•0 citations