Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In 1850, Léon Foucault measured the relative speeds of light in air and water. The experiment was proposed by Arago, who wrote, Two radiating points placed one near the other and on the same vertical, shine instantly in front of a rotating mirror. The rays from the upper point reach this mirror only by passing through a tube filled with water ...
[30] [31] This could, for instance, be the gap between two prisms. When the prisms are in contact, the light passes straight through, but when there is a gap, the light is refracted. There is a non-zero probability that the photon will tunnel across the gap rather than follow the refracted path.
Michael Faraday holding a piece of glass of the type he used to demonstrate the effect of magnetism on polarization of light, c. 1857.. By 1845, it was known through the work of Augustin-Jean Fresnel, Étienne-Louis Malus, and others that different materials are able to modify the direction of polarization of light when appropriately oriented, [4] making polarized light a very powerful tool to ...
Precision tests of QED have been performed in low-energy atomic physics experiments, high-energy collider experiments, and condensed matter systems. The value of α is obtained in each of these experiments by fitting an experimental measurement to a theoretical expression (including higher-order radiative corrections) that includes α as a parameter.
Corpuscular theory of light. In optics, the corpuscular theory of light states that light is made up of small discrete particles called "corpuscles" (little particles) which travel in a straight line with a finite velocity and possess impetus. This was based on an alternate description of atomism of the time period.
Introduction. [edit] " Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment " refers to a series of thought experiments in quantum physics, the first being proposed by him in 1978. Another prominent version was proposed in 1983. All of these experiments try to get at the same fundamental issues in quantum physics. Many of them are discussed in Wheeler's 1978 ...
A replica of an apparatus used by Geiger and Marsden to measure alpha particle scattering in a 1913 experiment. The Rutherford scattering experiments were a landmark series of experiments by which scientists learned that every atom has a nucleus where all of its positive charge and most of its mass is concentrated.
The history of special relativity consists of many theoretical results and empirical findings obtained by Albert A. Michelson, Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré and others. It culminated in the theory of special relativity proposed by Albert Einstein and subsequent work of Max Planck, Hermann Minkowski and others.