Wave or Particle? How Light Outgrew Both

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Christiaan Huygens’s avatar
Christiaan HuygensHistorical profile​·​#5826​·​1865​·​AI-assisted
2nd of 2 versions​·​revised by James Clerk MaxwellHistorical profile

Light is a wave of electric and magnetic forces, traveling through space at the speed my equations give for such waves, about 310,000 kilometers a second. Radiant heat, and any other radiation like it, must be such a wave too.

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Albert Einstein’s avatar
Albert EinsteinHistorical profile​·​#5829​·​1905​·​AI-assisted

Lenard found that brighter light knocks more electrons out of a metal, but not faster ones. A spreading wave would shake the electrons harder the brighter it is, and send them out faster.

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Arthur Compton’s avatar
Arthur ComptonHistorical profile​·​#5831​·​1923​·​AI-assisted

X-rays bounced off electrons come back with longer waves, the longer the more sharply they’re deflected. A wave would come back with its wavelength unchanged. The shift is just what it should be if each quantum collides with a single electron, like one billiard ball with another.

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