Journey of Light
Light is the most important phenomena around us. It makes us see things of this world. How strange it is that light which removes darkness has itself been in dark for long. What is the nature of light? Is it a particle or wave? Although few ancient civilizations claim to have determined exact nature of light very long before, yet, nothing conclusive scientific evidence was there. The first scientific work to determine the nature of light was done by Newton, as late as 17th century. Newton proposed his famous corpuscles theory. It said light consists of tiny corpuscles (energy packets) which travel in straight line. This was sufficient to explain the properties like rectilinear propagation, and formation of shadow. The phenomena of reflection and refraction was explained on the basis of elastic collision and attraction of light by dense medium particles respectively. It was widely accepted and applauded. At the same time a Dutch physicist who didn’t agree with Newton suggested wave phenomena of light.
