footing. The character of light itself was described by Descartes in the 17th century as \pressure that was transmitted through space from a source to an eye (a detector). This idea was later developed by Huygens and Hooke into the wave theory of light. At about the same time, Gassendi put forward the contravening notion that light was a particle, an idea embraced and developed further by Newton. The diering perspectives of light as a particle versus a wave
footing. The character of light itself was described by Descartes in the 17th century as \pressure that was transmitted through space from a source to an eye (a detector). This idea was later developed by Huygens and Hooke into the wave theory of light. At about the same time, Gassendi put forward the contravening notion that light was a particle, an idea embraced and developed further by Newton. The diering perspectives of light as a particle versus a wave
Have you ever tried to define light? If so, your definition is probably related to vision, the ability to see things. The Merriam-Webster English dictionary defines light as “something that makes vision possible”. However, the definition of the “nature of light” is a complex term already discussed by philosophers of Ancient Greece. In the 17th century, the debate on the matter focused on whether light was a particle or a wave, based on the different properties of light that had been gradually discovered over time. Isaac Newton (1642−1727) was a defender of the corpuscular theory of light, which considered light to be formed by particles, i.e., small pieces of matter, like dust or grains of sand. He was the author of Opticks (1706), the front cover of which appears in Fig. 1.1. Christian Huygens (1629–1695), on the other hand, supported the theory that light is a wave. These are two completely different definitions of the same physical concept. A range of experiments were developed to attempt to clarify this dilemma, but it was only until 1900 when Max Planck (1858-1947) introduced the basis of a theory that would go on to revolutionize scientific thinking, marking the beginning of modern physics: quantum theory. Developed during the 20th century thanks to advances made by scientists such as Niels Bohr, Born, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Pauli, Dirac, Einstein or de Broglie, quantum theory clarified that light is neither a particle nor a wave, but that it has a dual nature: it behaves like a wave as it spreads but like a particle in its interactions with matter. In this book, we will specify where necessary whether light behaves as a particle or as a wave, although in most cases we refer to rays of light, which always represent the direction of propagation of light.
In the process of exploring the essence of light, Newton initially agreed with the particle interpretation of light while Huygens argued for the wave theory. Hence, these two theories had been disputed in Newton’s time. In the beginning people accepted the particle theory, but after Thomas Young’s experiment and Augustin Jean Fresnel’s experiment, people began to accept the wave theory. Until Einstein proposed the quanta concept, which was later called photon, and, even later, De Broglie proposed the wave nature of matter, subsequently, people began using particle-wave duality to explicate all phenomena in micro world. Thus here appears a paradox: how can one particle exist in two forms? To solve this enigma, I have done some experiments; discover that moving photons create force; this effect reveal the phenomenon of light wave property - the inference fringes is caused by force which moving photons produced. The essence of light is particle but not particle-wave duality.
In the process of exploring the essence of light, Newton initially agreed with the particle interpretation of light while Huygens argued for the wave theory. Hence, these two theories had been disputed in Newton's time. In the beginning people accepted the particle theory, but after Thomas Young's experiment and Augustin Jean Fresnel's experiment, people began to accept the wave theory. Until Einstein proposed the quanta concept, which was later called photon, and, even later, De Broglie proposed the wave nature of matter, subsequently, people began using particle-wave duality to explicate all phenomena in micro world. Thus here appears a paradox: how can one particle exist in two forms? To solve this enigma, I have done some experiments; discover that moving photons create force; this effect reveal the phenomenon of light wave property - the inference fringes is caused by force which moving photons produced. The essence of light is particle but not particle-wave duality.
Modern attempts to understand light go back to Newton who considered light to be particles, the so called corpuscular theory, and the other school of Huygens, Young and others. Huygens and Young viewpoint emphasised the wave property. This difference of opinions persisted for close to two centuries till Maxwell theory solidly established light as a wave phenomenon associated with Electromagnetism. A serious schism so to speak was introduced into the theory of light with the understanding of "Light gas", the so called Black Body radiation. Einstein's photon hypothesis and Bose's successful derivation of the Planck spectrum put the corpuscular theory back in place, while classical description continues to be used as well. One may then wonder if this being a classical limit may have to be corrected when dealing with quantum phenomena. To most people's surprise, the classical description was in fact a subset of the full quantum description, and the classical states of light could be shown to be subsumed within the fully quantum description without having to take the limit of Planck's constant h going to zero. This was the resolution provided by E. C. G. Sudarshan's Diagonal representation as the most general formalism for dealing with light.
Scientific inquiry took millennia to ascertain the true nature of light, and it is not possible here to attempt to recapitulate all of the philosophizing, hypotheses, arguments, and experimentation involved in that great debate. The main point of controversy was whether light should be considered as a particle or as a wave. Empedocles of Acragas (492–432 b.c.e .) was of the opinion that light is a “streaming substance” emitted by luminous bodies, and that light travels at a finite speed ( Sambursky, 1958 ). In the seventeenth century, Isaac Newton postulated that light is composed of particles and that color is connected with the size of those particles; however, his contemporary Christiaan Huygens argued that light is a wave that transfers energy but not substance ( Einstein & Infeld, 1966 , p. 105ff). It turns out that light is indeed a wave propagating via electric and magnetic fields, but in addition to exhibiting properties of waves (such as interference) it also exhibits properties of particles (such as momentum and localization). When treating light as particles, the individual quanta are called photons .
Newton thought that light was made up of particles, but then it was discovered, as we have seen here, that it behaves like a wave. Later, however (in the beginning of the twentieth century) it was found that light did indeed sometimes behave like a particle. Historically, the electron, for example, was thought to behave like a particle, and then it was found that in many respects it behaved like a wave. So it really behaves like neither. Now we have given up. We say: “it is like neither.” ere is one lucky break, however-electrons behave like light. e quantum behaviour of atomic objects (electrons, protons, neutron, photons, and so on) is the same for all, they are all ‘particle waves’ or whatever you want to call them.