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Quantum optics

Particles of light

Nature volume 468, pages 517–518 (2010)Cite this article

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Bose–Einstein condensation, which demonstrates the wave nature of material particles, now offers further illumination of wave–particle duality: it has been observed in light itself. See Letter p.545

Modern physics teaches that light has wave as well as particle properties. But one of the most basic differences between the wave and particle theories is rarely emphasized in textbooks. Classical light waves are not conserved like the atoms of Democritus, but can easily be excited and absorbed. So, a lamp may run out of battery power, but it does not run out of light. In this respect, Newton's particle theory of light was as false as the caloric theory of heat, according to which heat was a conserved substance held in matter like water in a sponge. In fact, both heat and light are simply convertible forms of energy. And it was the thermodynamics of light that led Planck and Einstein to the quantum unification of wave and particle theories.

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Figure 1: The Ancient of Days painted by William Blake.

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  1. James Anglin is in the OPTIMAS State Research Center and the Physics Department, Technical University Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern 67663, Germany. janglin@physik.uni-kl.de,

    James Anglin

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  1. James Anglin
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Anglin, J. Particles of light. Nature 468, 517–518 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/468517a

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