Within the atom. A popular view of electronics and quanta

F. G. Major

F. G. Major

RODNEY M. J. COTTERILL

Art Hobson

I propose a conceptual change in the way we teach nonrelativistic quantum physics in introductory survey courses and general modern physics courses. Traditional instruction treats radiation as a quantized electromagnetic wave that, because it is quantized, is observable only as discrete field quanta, while treating matter as particles that are accompanied by a wave function. In other words, traditional instruction views radiation as fundamentally a field phenomenon, and matter as fundamentally a particle phenomenon. But quantum field theory has a more unified view, according to which both radiation and matter are continuous fields while both photons and material particles are quanta of these fields. The quantum field theory view of radiation and matter clarifies particle identity issues, dispels students’ Newtonian misconceptions about matter, arguably resolves the wave-particle paradox, is the accepted view of contemporary physics, and might be the simplest and most effective teaching approach for all students. I propose that we make this field-theory viewpoint the conceptual basis for teaching non-relativistic quantum physics.

Hermann Haken, Hans Christoph Wolf

Bruce W. Shore

Chapter 3 reviews the traditional historical, schoolbook notions of thermal radiation quanta found in the work of Planck, the traveling and absorbed quanta of Einstein, the spectroscopic evidence associated with the atom transitions of Bohr, and the scattering evidence of Compton – experiments that resulted in seemingly conicting views of photons as particles and as waves. It comments on revisionist views that have made these four experimental works no longer the definitive evidences for photons that they once were regarded.