Related papers: The conception of photons
Attempts to explain the refraction of light in dispersive media in terms of a photon or "corpuscular" model have heretofore been unable to account for the observed decrease in the speed of light as it passes from air into a region of higher…
In 1936, Albert Einstein wrote a brief article where he suggested the possibility that a massive object acted as a lens, amplifying the brightness of a star. As time went by, this phenomenon, known as gravitational lensing, has become a…
We extend classical Maxwell field theory to a first quantized theory of the photon by deriving a conserved Lorentz four-current whose zero component is a positive definite number density. Fields are real and their positive (negative)…
The precise position of a spectral line emitted by an atomic system depends on the mass of the atomic nucleus and is therefore different for isotopes belonging to the same element. The possible presence of an isotope effect followed from…
It is universally believed that with his 1905 paper "Does the inertia of a body depend on its energy content?" Einstein first demonstrated the equivalence of mass and energy by making use of his special theory of relativity. In the final…
Special relativity was discovered at the eve of the century, but finds its roots in the 19th century efforts to understand the optics and electromagnetism of moving bodies. These roots are reviewed in Parts 1 and 2, the latter being…
We sketch the foundations of classical electrodynamics, in particular the transition that took place when Einstein, in 1915, succeeded to formulate general relativity. In 1916 Einstein demonstrated that, with a choice of suitable variables…
The foundations of Einstein's first (1907) principle of equivalence are explored and their consequences are stated in terms of invariance under generalized Lorentz transformations, first explored by Hessenberg.
The expressions of momentum and energy of a particle in special relativity are often derived in a quite unconvincing manner in elementary text, by resorting either to electrodynamic or quantum considerations, or via the introduction of the…
Although electrons (fermions) and photons(bosons) produce the same interference patterns in the two-slit experiments, the description of these patterns is markedly different. Photons are spin one, relativistic and massless while electrons…
Planck's formula and General Relativity indicate that potential energy influences spacetime. Using Einstein's Equivalence Principle and an extension of his Chock Hypothesis, an explicit description of this influence is derived. We present a…
The inertial and gravitational mass of electromagnetic radiation (i.e., a photon distribution) in a cavity with reflecting walls has been treated by many authors for over a century. After many contending discussions, a consensus has emerged…
The purpose of this article is to show that the standard method of introducing the quantum description of the electromagnetic field -- by canonical field quantization -- is not the only one. We have chosen instead as the starting point the…
Einstein's happiest thought was his leap from the observation that a falling person feels no gravity to the realization that gravity might be equivalent to acceleration. It affects all bodies in the same way because it is a property of…
Light emission by metals at room temperature is quenched by fast relaxation processes. Nevertheless, Mooradian reported in 1969 the observation of photoluminescence by metals pumped by a laser. Strikingly, while it is currently at the heart…
In 1930 Einstein argued against consistency of the time-energy uncertainty relation by discussing a thought experiment involving a measurement of mass of the box which emitted a photon. Bohr seemingly triumphed over Einstein by arguing that…
Lasers essentially consist of single-mode optical cavities containing two-level atoms with a supply of energy called the pump and a sink of energy, perhaps an optical detector. The latter converts the light energy into a sequence of…
The textbook-accepted formulation of electromagnetic force was proposed by Lorentz in the 19th century, but its validity has been challenged due to incompatibility with the special relativity and momentum conservation. The Einstein-Laub…
Several approaches to the quantum-gravity problem predict that spacetime should be "fuzzy", but have been so far unable to provide a crisp physical characterization of this notion. An intuitive picture of spacetime fuzziness has been…
This volume covers one of the most thrilling two-year periods in twentieth-century physics, as matrix mechanics - developed chiefly by W. Heisenberg, M. Born, and P. Jordan - and wave mechanics - developed by E. Schr\"odinger - supplanted…