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Another supporter of the wave theory was Leonhard Euler. He argued in Nova theoria lucis et colorum (1746) that diffraction could more easily be explained by a wave theory. In 1816 André-Marie Ampère gave Augustin-Jean Fresnel an idea that the polarization of light can be explained by the wave theory if light were a transverse wave. [37]
In part correct, [2] being able to successfully explain refraction, reflection, rectilinear propagation and to a lesser extent diffraction, the theory would fall out of favor in the early nineteenth century, as the wave theory of light amassed new experimental evidence. [3] The modern understanding of light is the concept of wave-particle duality.
In the late 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton had advocated that light was corpuscular (particulate), but Christiaan Huygens took an opposing wave description. While Newton had favored a particle approach, he was the first to attempt to reconcile both wave and particle theories of light, and the only one in his time to consider both, thereby anticipating modern wave-particle duality.
EMR of lower energy ultraviolet or lower frequencies (i.e., near ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, microwaves, and radio waves) is non-ionizing because its photons do not individually have enough energy to ionize atoms or molecules or to break chemical bonds. The effect of non-ionizing radiation on chemical systems and living tissue is ...
A century later, Thomas Young [a] and Augustin-Jean Fresnel revived the wave theory of light when they pointed out that light could be a transverse wave rather than a longitudinal wave; the polarization of a transverse wave (like Newton's "sides" of light) could explain birefringence, and in the wake of a series of experiments on diffraction ...
1818 – Augustin Fresnel introduces the wave theory of light, which proposes light is a transverse wave travelling in an aether, thereby explaining how polarization can exist. It is important to note that both Newton's particle theory and Fresnel's wave theory both assume an aether exists, albeit for different reasons.
In the late 1660s and early 1670s, Isaac Newton expanded Descartes's ideas into a corpuscle theory of light, famously determining that white light was a mix of colours that can be separated into its component parts with a prism. In 1690, Christiaan Huygens proposed a wave theory for light based on suggestions that had been made by Robert Hooke ...
Visible light (and near-infrared light) is typically absorbed and emitted by electrons in molecules and atoms that move from one energy level to another. This action allows the chemical mechanisms that underlie human vision and plant photosynthesis. The light that excites the human visual system is a very small portion of the electromagnetic ...