Related papers: The conception of photons
In 1904, the year before Einstein's seminal papers on special relativity, Austrian physicist Fritz Hasenohrl examined the properties of blackbody radiation in a moving cavity. He calculated the work necessary to keep the cavity moving at a…
Section 7 of Einstein's 1905 electrodynamics paper gives frequency-shift and aberration formulae that together describe an elongated ellipsoidal wavefront. A Lorentz contraction of this ellipsoid solves most (but not all) of the associated…
A detailed re-examination of the seminal paper on special relativity, taking into account recent work on the physical interpretation of the space-time Lorentz transformation as well as the modern understanding of classical elecromagnetism…
After a historical discussion of Einstein's 1907 principle of equivalence, a homogeneous gravitational field in Minkowski spacetime is constructed. It is pointed out that the reference frames in gravitational theory can be understood as…
The difficulties encountered up till now in the theory of identifying the spin and orbital angular momentum of the photon stem from the approach of dividing the angular momentum of the photon into spin and orbital parts. Here we derive the…
In a famous paper where he introduces the A and B coefficients, Einstein considered that atomic decays of excited atoms can be stimulated by light waves. Here we consider that atomic decays can also be stimulated by atomic waves. It is…
Photons are the elementary quantum excitations of the electromagnetic field. Quantization is usually constructed on the basis of an expansion in eigenmodes, in the form of plane waves. Since they form a basis, other electromagnetic…
The presence of gravity implies corrections to the Einstein-Planck formula $E=h \nu$. This gives hope that the divergent blueshift in frequency, associated to the presence of a black hole horizon, could be smoothed out for the energy. Using…
De Broglie's original idea that a photon is composed of a neutrino-antineutrino pair bound by some interaction was severely modified by Jordan. Although Jordan addressed an important problem (photon statistics) that de Broglie had not…
I argue that Einstein overlooked an important aspect of the relativity of time in never quite realizing his quest to embody Mach's principle in his theory of gravity. As a step towards that goal, I broaden the Strong Equivalence Principle…
A theory of Bose-Einstein condensation of light in a dye-filled optical microcavity is presented. The theory is based on the hierarchical maximum entropy principle and allows one to investigate the fluctuating behavior of the photon gas in…
Einstein's thesis ``A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions'' was the second of his five celebrated papers in 1905. Although it is -- thanks to its widespread practical applications -- the most quoted of his papers, it is less known…
The counting statistics give insight into the properties of quantum states of light and other quantum states of matter such as ultracold atoms or electrons. The theoretical description of photon counting was derived in the 1960s and was…
This article presents a brief review of some historical and philosophical aspects of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity', a landmark work that denoted the starting point of modern…
We show that dark solitons in 1D Bose liquids may be created by absorption of a single quanta of an external ac field, in a close analogy with the Einstein's photoelectric effect. Similarly to the von Lenard's experiment with photoexcited…
Einstein based his special theory of relativity on two postulates: (a) physical laws appear the same in all inertial frames, and (b) the speed of light in vacuum is an observer-independent constant. However, it is already known that the…
The radical changes in the concepts and approach in Physics at the turn of the Nineteenth century were so deep, that is acknowledged as a revolution. However, in 1970 Thomas Kuhn's careful reconstruction of the researches on the black body…
The starting point of quantum mechanics is the relationship between energy and momentum: energy is proportional to the squared momentum! As a result, energy and momentum have not been treated equally. The wave equation required by…
A century ago, Einstein formulated his elegant and elaborate theory of General Relativity, which has so far withstood a multitude of empirical tests with remarkable success. Notwithstanding the triumphs of Einstein's theory, the tenacious…
The concept of fact has a history. Over the past centuries, physicists have appropriated it in various ways. In this article, we compare Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein's interpretations of the concept. Mach, like most nineteenth-century…