photon
Photon - do we need these?
08/04/08 16:53 Filed in: Physics
PHOTON
This word comes up quite often in physics. What does it mean? What do people use it for? How did this word come about? Do we EVEN NEED this word? Surprisingly, the answer to the last question is NO. You can mostly blame Einstein, but also Gilbert Lewis on the Nobel Prize committee - whoever they are called.
(the following is a summary of arguments summarized by my colleague David Norwood - so you can argue with him when you do not agree with this).
Before I go further in my summary, here is the paper from Norwood that I am basing this post on - The Use and Abuse of the “photon” in Nanomechanics (pdf)
In case you don't like to read much, here is the whole point:
This word comes up quite often in physics. What does it mean? What do people use it for? How did this word come about? Do we EVEN NEED this word? Surprisingly, the answer to the last question is NO. You can mostly blame Einstein, but also Gilbert Lewis on the Nobel Prize committee - whoever they are called.
(the following is a summary of arguments summarized by my colleague David Norwood - so you can argue with him when you do not agree with this).
Before I go further in my summary, here is the paper from Norwood that I am basing this post on - The Use and Abuse of the “photon” in Nanomechanics (pdf)
In case you don't like to read much, here is the whole point:
- Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect says that light is like a particle
- Gilbert Lewis comes up with the term "photon"
- Textbooks from thence forth use the concept of the particle nature of light
- It turns out that the wave nature of light explains the photoelectric effect (and many other effects that people use to proclaim photon-ness of light)
- There is perhaps a need for a quantum theory of radiation, but this is different than the particle-nature of light.
