"Classical" Solutions to the Challenges of Radiation and its Interaction with Matter

Film

The discovery of x-rays and gamma rays at the end of the nineteenth century, and the earlier discovery of the interaction between ultraviolet light and matter (photo-electricity) opened up quite a few questions for their researchers. Unlike the questions that followed form most of the phenomena discovered at the nineteenth century, some of these questions (and their connection) proved with time a challenge for the extant concepts of electromagnetic radiation and of particles. Yet, initially physicists accounted for the new phenomena with ideas and concepts from the physics of the previous century (“classical physics”). In this vain G.G. Stokes and others explained x-rays as electromagnetic impulse of waves within the Maxwellian framework. However, these basically continuous theories led to what Bruce Wheaton called the paradoxes of quantity (why only a small number of particles interacts with the radiation) and quality (how does the radiation provide energy of the same order of magnitude needed to produce it). Early answers, or partial answers, to these paradoxes continued to exploit older ideas. E.g., J. J. Thomson returned to Faradayʼs tubes or fields of force, to explain localization of the radiationʼs energy. This “corpuscular” idea was well known in the Anglo-Saxon world, and was sometimes conflated with Einsteinʼs quantum theory. Lenard employed the idea of resonance between two periodic phenomena to account for the effect of light on matter. According to his and to similar theories, light only triggers the release of electrons from the matter (photo-electricity and related phenomena). However, accumulation of experimental data around 1910 cast doubts on triggering theories. The rejection of triggering theories, however, did not entail acceptance of Einsteinʼs light quantum hypothesis, which originated from his considerations of black-body radiation. At the early 1910s, the quantum hypothesis was used by other researchers (Planck, Sommerfeld, Debye and Richardson) to account for photoelectricity. Yet, in their hands, the assumption did not include discontinuity of radiation. Their theories, however, were unsatisfactory due to disagreement with experiment, or luck of explanatory power. The accumulation of many experimental findings on the behaviour of electromagnetic radiation led most physicists to consider the interaction of light and matter as an open question, required a general explanation. At the same time they rejected Einsteinʼs light quantum

Angaben zum Objekt

• Maße: 00:26:55
• Sprache: Englisch

Klassifikation und Themen

• Bezug (wer): Katzir, Shaul (Autor)
• Bezug (wo): Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin
• Bezug (wann): 2010-06-28 - 2010-07-02
• Bezug (Ereignis): Third International Conference on the History of Quantum Physics (HQ 3) ; Building upon the momentum generated by two previous conferences in Berlin (2007) and in Utrecht (2008), this meeting brought together historians, philosophers, and scientists who work on the emergence and the development of quantum physics and related disciplines from the days of the old quantum theory until the present. The aim of the conference was to combine a genuinely historical perspective with a broader understanding of the foundations and implications of quantum physics. The thematic horizon extended from the classical traditions that quantum physics is rooted in, through the genesis of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, to the history of its appropriation in newly-emerging fields of research up to the present day

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wann): 2010
• (wo): Berlin
• (wer): Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte

Weitere Informationen

• Letzte Aktualisierung: 07.11.2024, 09:52 MEZ