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The reader surely knows what particles physics is about: finding building blocks of nature that appear elementary at a given time and study their interactions - so why in the world this essay? The problem is how to arrive at a fundamental…
Quantum optics is the study of the intrinsically quantum properties of light. During the second part of the 20th century experimental and theoretical progress developed together; nowadays quantum optics provides a testbed of many…
Following the spirit of de Broglie and Einstein, we think the concepts of matter and radiation can be unified. We know a particle propagates like a wave; its motion is described by certain wave equations. At this point, it is not clear what…
Advances in micro-technology of the last years have made it possible to carry optics textbooks experiments over to atomic and molecular beams, such as diffraction by a double slit or transmission grating. The usual wave-optical approach…
In the conventional approach to lens imaging, rays are used to map object points to image points. However, many students have a need to think of the image as a whole. To answer this need, lens imaging is reinterpreted as a superposition of…
Motivated by a revision of the classical equations of electromagnetism that allow for the inclusion of solitary waves in the solution space, the material collected in these notes examines the consequences of adopting the modified model in…
In this paper, I argue that light is a continuous classical electromagnetic wave, while the observed so-called quantum nature of the interaction of light with matter is connected to the discrete (atomic) structure of matter and to the…
Compared to classical optical coherence theory based on Maxwell's electromagnetic theory and Glauber's quantum optical coherence theory based on matrix mechanics formulation of quantum mechanics, quantum optical coherence theory based on…
The analysis of the Doppler effect for photons in rotating systems, studied using the M\"ossbauer effect, confirms the general conclusions of a previous paper dedicated to experiments with photons emitted/absorbed by atoms/nuclei in…
The status of the photon in the modern physics was analysed. Within the frames of the Standard Model of particle physics the photon is considered to be the genuine elementary particle, being to be the messenger of the electromagnetic…
Photons deliver their energy and momentum to a point on a material target. It is commonplace to attribute this to particle impact. But since the inflight photon also has a wave nature, we are stuck with the paradox of wave and particle…
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
Diffraction limits the behaviour of light in optical systems and sets the smallest achievable line width at half the wavelength. With a novel subwavelength plasmonic lens to reduce the diffraction via an asymmetry and to generate and…
A modified double slit experiment of light was implemented. In the experiment, a spatial shape filter is used to manipulate the shape of cross section of laser beam. When this modified laser beam was shined on the double slit, the intensity…
One can interpret the Dirac equation either as giving the dynamics for a classical field or a quantum wave function. Here I examine whether Maxwell's equations, which are standardly interpreted as giving the dynamics for the classical…
The existence of twisted light may be inferred from modern quantum concepts and experimental data. These waves possess energy, impulse and angular momentum. However, the Maxwell's four-dimensional theory of electromagnetism does not imply…
In the first part of the talk, I give a low-resolution overview of the current state of particle physics - the triumph of the Standard Model and its discontents. I review and re-endorse the remarkably direct and (to me) compelling argument…
I report the result of a which-way experiment based on Young's double-slit experiment. It reveals which slit photons go through while retaining the (self) interference of all the photons collected. The idea is to image the slits using a…
Suggestion of physics laboratory exercises and discussion of the physics laboratory curricula for engineering majors where the properties of light and electromagnetic waves are studied in parallel. It is shown that one of the important…
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,…