The problem of light : the first rumblings of the wave-particle duality

Abstract

Light - the physicists' problem. The nature of light was the subject of such controversy ever since two schools of thought - one led by Newton, the other by Huyghens - had proposed two different viewpoints of the nature of light. Newton viewed light as a stream of discrete particles while Huyghens maintained that light was a form of wave-motion. As any O-level student knows, experimentation involving wave-properties such as diffraction (the famous Young's slits experiments) eventually proved as correct Huyghens' idea of light as waves passing through a continium, which was eventually shown to be space itself by the Scot, James Clerk-MaxwelI in his work on electromagnetic radiation. By the end of the 19th Century, it seemed that light presented no problem. Light was waves.