What is Light?
Light is a particle!!!
During the 17th century, that question was
pretty confusing. Issac Newton
thought light was made of tiny particle that
he called corpuscles that were emitted by hot objects.
Then, Albert Einstein in the 19th century
argued that properties of reflection and
refraction of light
could be only possible if it was made as a
particle. Newtons and Einsteins idea of light
didn't make complete sense because light
didn't have all the properties that define a
particle. A particle is a quantity of matter
with mass and volume, but a photon doesn't
have mass so light couldn't be a particle.
Light is a wave!!
A Dutch physics Christian Huygens, thought light was a kind of wave that vibrates up and down. The question got even more complicated at this point because light didn't behave completely like a wave.
Light is an electromagnetic wave!!
The question was pretty well answered by the
end of the 19th century by the Scottish
physicist James Clerk Maxwell who collected
the ideas of electricity and magnetism given
by Christian Orsted and Michael Faraday.
Maxwell took these ideas and put them together
into the theory of "electromagnetism" and
light.
James Maxwell realized that a change in the electric field could create a change on the magnetic field which will create constantly another electric field that will result in an electromagnetic field that travels really really fast. Thomas Young and Maxwell, are credited with investigating the wave-like properties of light, and here is were the double slit experiment opens the world to the idea that light behaves like a wave but his discovery didn't gave as the full answer of what light really is.
What light really is?
Combining all the ideas of light as a
particle, a wave and
electromagnetic wave; light is
an elementary particle that also
behaves like a wave propelled by an electric
field and a magnetic filed traveling
at the speed limit of light of the
universe. This sound really
complicated but the double slit
experiment helped scientist to find
the path for the definition of light.
Before we
go forward to the double slit experiment, we
have to ask our self one of the most
confusing question of physics, What is
light?
Light is a particle!!!
During the 17th century, that question was
pretty confusing. Issac Newton
thought light was made of tiny particle that
he called corpuscles that were emitted by hot objects.
Then, Albert Einstein in the 19th century
argued that properties of reflection and
refraction of light
could be only possible if it was made as a
particle. Newtons and Einsteins idea of light
didn't make complete sense because light
didn't have all the properties that define a
particle. A particle is a quantity of matter
with mass and volume, but a photon doesn't
have mass so light couldn't be a particle.Light is a wave!!
A Dutch physics Christian Huygens, thought light was a kind of wave that vibrates up and down. The question got even more complicated at this point because light didn't behave completely like a wave.
Light is an electromagnetic wave!!
The question was pretty well answered by the
end of the 19th century by the Scottish
physicist James Clerk Maxwell who collected
the ideas of electricity and magnetism given
by Christian Orsted and Michael Faraday.
Maxwell took these ideas and put them together
into the theory of "electromagnetism" and
light.James Maxwell realized that a change in the electric field could create a change on the magnetic field which will create constantly another electric field that will result in an electromagnetic field that travels really really fast. Thomas Young and Maxwell, are credited with investigating the wave-like properties of light, and here is were the double slit experiment opens the world to the idea that light behaves like a wave but his discovery didn't gave as the full answer of what light really is.
What light really is?
Combining all the ideas of light as a
particle, a wave and
electromagnetic wave; light is
an elementary particle that also
behaves like a wave propelled by an electric
field and a magnetic filed traveling
at the speed limit of light of the
universe. This sound really
complicated but the double slit
experiment helped scientist to find
the path for the definition of light.