Related papers: The conception of photons
When Einstein formulated his special relativity in 1905, he established the law of Lorentz transformations for point particles. It is now known that particles have internal space-time structures. Particles, such as photons and electrons,…
It is shown how the study of blackbody radiation in the early twentieth century by the German physicist Max Planck gave rise to the quantum theory.
This paper completes a three-part study of Einstein's 1905 special relativity by reconstructing the experimental pressures that shaped his thinking from 1895 to June 1905. Following Stachel's historiographical line, I trace Einstein's path…
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was proposed a little over a hundred years back. It remained a bedrock of twentieth century physics right up to Quantum Field Theory. However, the failure over several decades to provide a unified…
The evolution of light theories began with Isaac Newton's corpuscular model, which explained reflection and refraction but could not account for diffraction and interference. In contrast, Christiaan Huygens proposed a wave theory,…
In 1905, Einstein formulated his special relativity for point particles. For those particles, his Lorentz covariance and energy-momentum relation are by now firmly established. How about the hydrogen atom? It is possible to perform Lorentz…
Matter waves were discovered in the early 20th century from their wavelength, predicted by DeBroglie, Planck's constant divided by the particle's momentum, that is, lmw = h/mv. But, the failure to obtain a reasonable theory for the matter…
The year 2025 had been designated by UNESCO as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. 125 years ago Max Planck's discovery of radiation quanta started the quantum era and 100 years ago quantum mechanics was discovered by…
In applied physics and in engineering intuitive understanding is a boost for creativity and almost a necessity for efficient product improvement. The existence of soliton solutions to the quantum equations in the presence of…
We present a translation of Albert Einstein's Rio de Janeiro manuscript on light quanta. In it, Einstein evaluates the Bohr-Kramers-Slater refutation of light quanta, which was concurrently the subject of intense empirical scrutiny on two…
Quantum mechanics of photons is derived from the theory of representations of the Poincar\'e group developed by Wigner. This theory places helicity as the most fundamental property; angular momentum and polarization are secondary…
Experimental evidence of the photoelectric effect goes back to H. Hertz. It occurred during the famous confirmation experiments of the Maxwellian theory. It is commonly held however that it cannot be explained in the framework of that…
Quantum Mechanics of photons leads to a theory of Quantum Gravity that nicely matches the experimental results of varying fine structure constant,obtained from many-multiplet Quaser absorption systems and atomic clocks.The variation of that…
The origin of dark energy remains to be one of the challenges of modern cosmology. We modify Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory using a vector field instead of a scalar field and theory becomes similar to a simple Einstein-aether theory. The time…
The thermodynamical properties of the photon-plasma system had been studied using statistical physics approach. Photons develop an effective mass in the medium thus -- as a result of the finite chemical potential -- a photon Bose-Einstein…
In 1907 Einstein discussed with Wilhelm Wien the occurrences of superluminal velocities in dispersive and absorptive media. Einstein tried to present to Wien an expression for the group velocity in dispersive media that was based on his…
In 1919 Einstein tried to solve the problem of the structure of matter by assuming that the elementary particles are held together solely by gravitational forces. In addition, Einstein also assumed the presence inside matter of…
The radiation of photons by electrons is investigated in the framework of quantum electrodynamics up to the second order in the coupling constant $e$. The $N$-particle, coherent, and thermal initial states are considered and the forms of…
Einstein's revolutionary light quantum hypothesis of 1905 and his further contributions to quantum theory are reviewed.
It is argued that any operational measure of time is inseparably bound to the presence of a periodic process in some medium. Since, as first formulated by Einstein's (1905) equation for the energy, all "particles" (neutrons, electrons,…