At the end of his career (in 1954) Einstein predicts a possible death of
physics:
"I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field
concept,i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my
entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest of
modern physics."
The choice Einstein had to make between the concept of light as a
continuous field and the concept of light as discontinuous particles
(photons) is rarely mentioned in the literature but still there are
eloquent quotations:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/genius/ :
"Genius Among Geniuses" by Thomas Levenson
"And then, in June, Einstein completes special relativity, which adds a
twist to the story: Einstein's March paper treated light as particles, but
special relativity sees light as a continuous field of waves. Alice's Red
Queen can accept many impossible things before breakfast, but it takes a
supremely confident mind to do so. Einstein, age 26, sees light as wave and
particle, picking the attribute he needs to confront each problem in turn.
Now that's tough."
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=4-0486406768-0 :
"Relativity and Its Roots" by Banesh Hoffmann:
(I do not have the text in English so I am giving it in French)
Banesh Hoffmann, "La relativite, histoire d'une grande idee", Pour la
Science, Paris, 1999, p. 112:
"De plus, si l'on admet que la lumiere est constituee de particules, comme
Einstein l'avait suggere dans son premier article, 13 semaines plus tot, le
second principe parait absurde: une pierre jetee d'un train qui roule tres
vite fait bien plus de degats que si on la jette d'un train a l'arret. Or,
d'apres Einstein, la vitesse d'une certaine particule ne serait pas
independante du mouvement du corps qui l'emet! Si nous considerons que la
lumiere est composee de particules qui obeissent aux lois de Newton, ces
particules se conformeront a la relativite newtonienne. Dans ce cas, il
n'est pas necessaire de recourir a la contraction des longueurs, au temps
local ou a la transformation de Lorentz pour expliquer l'echec de
l'experience de Michelson-Morley. Einstein, comme nous l'avons vu, resista
cependant a la tentation d'expliquer ces echecs a l'aide des idees
newtoniennes, simples et familieres. Il introduisit son second postulat,
plus ou moins evident lorsqu'on pensait en termes d'ondes dans l'ether."
Clearly, the particle model of light finds its support in the negative
result of Michelson-Morley experiment. It is also consistent with the third
equation of Maxwell (Faraday's induction law) as implied at the beginning
of Einstein's 1905 paper:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/
(The "customary view" Einstein refers to is the ether model of Maxwell that
Maxwell himself abandoned in the end; the fact that the particle model of
light naturally contradicts the ether model by no means implies that the
particle model is inconsistent with the Faraday's induction law, although
the mythology says otherwise.)
Pentcho Valev
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