Focusing on the unresolved debate between Newton and Huygens from 300 years ago, The Nature of Light: What is a Photon? discusses the reality behind enigmatic photons. It explores the fundamental issues pertaining to light that still exist today. Gathering contributions from globally recognized specialists in electrodynamics and quantum optics, the book begins by clearly presenting the mainstream view of the nature of light and photons. It then provides a new and challenging scientific epistemology that explains how to overcome the prevailing paradoxes and confusions arising from the accepted definition of a photon as a monochromatic Fourier mode of the vacuum. The book concludes with an array of experiments that demonstrate the innovative thinking needed to examine the wave-particle duality of photons. Looking at photons from both mainstream and out-of-box viewpoints, this volume is sure to inspire the next generation of quantum optics scientists and engineers to go beyond the Copenhagen interpretation and formulate new conceptual ideas about light-matter interactions and substantiate them through inventive applications.

Roychoudhuri, Chandrasekhar; Kracklauer, Al F; Creath, Katherine

Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri; Al F Kracklauer; Katherine Creath

Technomic Publishing Co., Inc.

CRC Press LLC

Optical science and engineering (CRC Press), 135, Boca Raton, ©2008

Optical science and engineering (CRC Press), Boca Raton, FL, ©2008

United States, United States of America

Boca Raton, Florida, 2008

June 2, 2008

1, PS, 2008

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Light Reconsidered / Arthur Zajonc -- What Is A Photon? / Rodney Loudon -- What Is A Photon? / David Finkelstein -- The Concept Of The Photon -- Revisited / Ashok Muthukrishnan, Marlan O. Scully, And M. Suhail Zubairy -- A Photon Viewed From Wigner Phase Space / Holger Mack And Wolfgang P. Schleich -- Inevitable Incompleteness Of All Theories: An Epistemology To Continuously Refine Human Logics Towards Cosmic Logics / Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri -- Single Photons Have Not Been Detected: The Alternative Photon Clump Model / Emilio Panarella -- What Is A Photon? / C. Rangacharyulu -- Oh Photon, Photon; Whither Art Thou Gone? / A.f. Kracklauer -- The Photon Wave Function / A. Muthukrishnan, M.o. Scully, And M.s. Zubairy -- Photons Are Fluctuations Of A Random (zeropoint) Radiation Filling The Whole Space / Emilio Santos -- Violation Of The Principle Of Complementarity And Its Implications / Shahriar S. Afshar -- The Bohr Model Of The Photon / Geoffrey Hunter, Marian Kowalski, And Camil Alexandrescu -- The Maxwell Wave Function Of The Photon / M.g. Raymer And Brian J. Smith -- Modeling Light Entangled In Polarization And Frequency: Case Study In Quantum Cryptography / John M. Myers -- Photon -- The Minimum Dose Of Electromagnetic Radiation / Tuomo Suntola -- Propagating Topological Singularities: Photons / R.m. Kiehn --the Photon: A Virtual Reality / David L. Andrews -- The Photon And Its Measurability / Edward Henry Dowdye, Jr. -- Phase Coherence In Multiple Scattering: Weak And Intense Monochromatic Light Wave Propagating In Cold Strontium Cloud / David Wilkowski ... [et Al.] -- The Nature Of Light: Description Of Photon Diffraction Based Upon Virtual Particle Exchange / Michael J. Mobley -- What Physics Is Encoded In Maxwell's Equations? / B.p. Kosyakov -- From Quantum To Classical: Watching A Single Photon Become A Wave / Marco Bellini, Alessandro Zavatta, And Sivia Viciani -- If Superposed Light Beams Do Not Re-distribute Their Energy In The Absence Of Detectors (material Dipoles), Can A Single Indivisible Photon Interfere? / Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri -- What Processes Are Behind Energy Re-direction And Re-distribution In Interference And Diffraction? / Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri -- Do We Count Indivisible Photons Or Discrete Quantum Events Experienced By Detectors? / Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri And Negussie Tirfessa -- Direct Measurement Of Light Waves / E. Goulielmakis ... [et Al.]. Edited By Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri, A.f. Kracklauer, Katherine Creath. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.

"Focusing on the unresolved debate between Newton and Huygens from 300 years ago, The Nature of Light: What is a photon? discusses the reality behind engimatic photons. It explores the fundamental issues pertaining to light that still exist today"--back cover

xxi, 429 p. : 25 cm
Includes bibliographical references and index

2023-06-28