Basic ideas about light

How has our understanding of the nature of light evolved over the years?
What methods have been used to measure the speed of light?

Lecture 03
09 Jan 2013
Why talk
about light?
 Why talk about light?
Striking optical phenomena in the atmosphere
 Why talk about light?
Three great theories of 19th & 20th century physics came from the
need to resolve fundamental issues about the nature of light

E=mc 2

Electromagnetism

Quantum Mechanics
 Why talk about light?
The human eye is wonderful.

Eye Types Eye defects and correction

Anatomy of Perception and optical

Human Eye illusion
 Why talk about light?
It provides information about remote objects

Anecdotal
History

Hubble Space Telescope

Anatomy and types of

Telescopes
 Why talk about light?
It helps us see and manipulate the very small

Microscopy thru the

centuries

Microscope parameters

Anatomy of
Microscope
Imaging applications
Evolving views on the
nature of light
 What is
light?

Do we see because we cast a look;

Or because we caught a sight?

Original proponent of: Four-element Nature

Aphrodite made the human eye

out of the four elements; she lit
the fire in the eye which shone
out from the eye making sight
possible

(ca. 490430 BC)

 Greek atomist

The light and heat of the sun;

these are composed of minute
atoms which, when they are
shoved off, lose no time in
shooting right across the
interspace of air in the direction
imparted by the shove.
On the nature of the Universe

(ca. 99 BC ca. 55 BC)

 Light travels in
straight lines.

Father of Geometry
laws of reflection

Euclid
(ca. 428/427 348/347 BCE)
 refraction of light
still FROM the eye
(Emission Theory)

Ptolemy
(AD 90 c. 168)
 Kitab al-Manazir
(Book of Optics)

Light is composed of
minute particles with
finite speed.

from each point of every

colored body, illuminated
by any light, issue light
and color along every
straight line that can be
drawn from that point Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham)
(Intromission theory)
(AD 965 c. 1040)
 Discourse de la methode
I think, therefore I am.
La dioptrique: Light as
pulses propagating
instantaneously through
the contact of balls of
some medium (aether)

Light as WAVES
Followed up by
Christiaan Huygens

Rene Descartes
(1596 - 1650)
 Corpuscular Theory (Geometric Optics)
The propagation of light is depicted by light rays.
Light propagates in straight lines, subject to the
laws of reflection and refraction.

Light rays are streams

of corpuscular bodies

Sir Isaac Newton light corpuscles

Newton observed that the reflection of light from a mirror
resembles the rebound of a steel ball from a steel plate
 Double-slit experiment

Provided experimental
evidence of the wave
Thomas Young
nature of light.
(1773 - 1829)
 Quantum Theory (Quantum Optics)
Early 1900's Scientists realized that the wave theory
of light is incomplete.
Max Planck: emission of light by matter in energy
quanta
Albert Einstein: absorption by matter in discrete
packets of energy (now called photons)

Max Planck Albert Einstein

Light Amplification by Stimulated
Emission of Radiation
What is
light?
Light is BOTH a particle and a wave
The propagation of light is
more completely described
by the wave theory (but can
be approximated by
geometric optics for
relatively small
wavelengths).
The interaction of light with
matter (absorption and
emission) is best explained
by a quantum theory (i.e.
photons).
The speed of l(s)ight
The question:
Is the speed of light finite?
Yes, light is something in
motion, therefore there must
be some time elapsed during
its travel.

Empedocles
(c.490BC - c.430BC
No, light is a presence, not a
movement. If its speed were
Aristotle
finite, it would be too great to
(384 BC 322 BC) imagine.
 lasted a loooooo.ng time
Even by the 1600s the answer is still not clear.

The speed of light need not be infinite

because some things can be too fast to
be perceived.

Sir Francis Bacon

(1561 1626)

But light is not slowed down by the vacuum of

space surely a great obstacle. It's speed must
therefore be infinite.
Kepler
(1571 1630)
... until people actually started
trying to measure light speed

Galileo Galilei

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/waves_particles/lightspeed_evidence.html
The First successful measurement of the
speed of light
In 1676, by using one of Jupiter's moons, Ole Roemer,
established that the speed of light is finite (thus,
should be measurable).

Ole Roemer
(1644 1710)
 Roemer used the eclipses of Io
Eclipse times (about once every 1.76
days) of Io deviated cyclically from
predictions.

The deviation must be

caused by the variation of
the Earth-Jupiter distance
and the finite speed of light.

Ole Roemer
 According to Huygens: orbital
diameter of Earth was about: 3
x 1011 m
Roemer observed a cumulative
discrepancy of 22 minutes.
Using Huygens estimate of
distance, and Roemers idea,
speed of light = ____m/s
 James Bradley discovered stellar
aberration

1728, J.Bradley
discovers that the finite
speed of light,
combined with the
motion of the Earth
causes a shift in the
observed position of
the stars stellar
aberration.
Fizeau (1849)

Foucault (1850)
1879 Albert Michelson Rotating Mirror 299,910
1888 Heinrich Rudolf Hertz Electromagnetic Radiation 300,000
1889 Edward Bennett Rosa Electrical Measurements 300,000
1890s Henry Rowland Spectroscopy 301,800
1907 Edward Bennett Rosa/Noah Dorsey Electrical Measurements 299,788
1923 Andre Mercier Electrical Measurements 299,795

Albert Michelson - used Foucault's method

but with very high accuracy
Mirrors farther apart: 2000 ft instead of 60 ft
Better lenses
1926 estimate:299,796 km/s

1928 August Karolus and Otto Mittelstaedt Kerr Cell Shutter 299,778
1932 to 1935 Michelson and Pease Rotating Mirror (Interferometer) 299,774
1947 Louis Essen Cavity Resonator 299,792
1949 Carl I. Aslakson Shoran Radar 299,792.4
1951 Keith Davy Froome Radio Interferometer 299,792.75
1973 Kenneth M. Evenson Laser 299,792.457
1978 Peter Woods and Colleagues Laser 299,792.4588

Source: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/lightandcolor/speedoflight.ht ml
 Michelsons improved method
Delay of light along the blue path should be seen as an
interference with the light along the green path.
Michelsons improved method
Today's standard for the speed of light

1970s: lasers and cesium clocks

Very accurate measurements possible the speed
of light was known more accurately to the nearest
metre per second than the definition of a metre
itself.
It made more sense to define a standard metre by
fixing the speed of light.
 Today's standard for the speed of light

1983, SI (Systeme International) definition of a

metre:
A metre is the length of the path travelled by light in
vacuum during a time interval of
1 / 299 792 458 of a second.

Thus fixing at EXACTLY c = 299 792 458 m/s

This definition also enabled length standard to be
available anywhere in the world.
 Summary
Currently accepted idea: Light is BOTH a wave and
a particle travels as a wave, interacts as a
particle.
The speed of light in vacuum is constant and now
given a FIXED standard value.
We see because our eyes detects light FROM the
object. The last direction of light as it reaches the
eye determines the apparent location of the
source.