James Clerk Maxwell assumed exactly such an ether as the medium of propagation when he quantified a set of equations (known as Maxwell’s Laws or Maxwell’s equations) to explain electromagnetic radiation (including visible light) as the propagation of waves, and his predictions were in line with experimental findings.īecause no such ether had ever been discovered, the wave theory had a problem. Huygens had suggested luminiferous aether as the medium (or in more common modern terminology, ether). It appears that Thomas Young’s double-slit experiment strongly supported the wave theory of light over Newton’s particle theory by producing clear wave behaviour.Ī wave must often travel through some sort of medium in order to propagate. One observation that it struggled to adequately explain was diffraction. The corpuscular hypothesis of light ran into issues in the early nineteenth century. Newton’s hypothesis predominated for more than a century since Huygens’ theory had some difficulties correlating with observation and Newton’s reputation provided backing for it. Newton’s Corpuscular (particle) theory of light was opposed by Huygens’ Wave theory of light. Isaac Newton and Christiaan Huygens both put forth rival hypotheses regarding the behaviour of light in the 1600s. This article will help you understand the concepts of wave-particle duality and the theories that support it.
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