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prettygoodwordphoton (FOH-ton) - n., the elementary particle of light and other electromagnetic radiation, the quantum of electromagnetic energy.
The big thing about quantum mechanics is that things we think of as particles also, in circumstances, behave like waves, and that things we think of as waves (such as light) also, in circumstances, behave like particles. When light behaves like a particle, we call that particle a photon. Einstein first posited them, in 1905, when he demonstrated that the only way to understand the photovoltaic effect (used in every solar panel producing electricity) was to assume light hits the panel like particles, but the name wasn't coined until in 1916 by American physicist Leonard Troland, from Ancient Greek phōtós, light + -(i)on, and popularized by American physical chemist Gilbert N. Lewis starting in 1926.
(Still no picture because subatomic. Yes, fine, I could show you a pretty pic of a light beam split by a prism, but that's the light not the photon.)
---L.
The big thing about quantum mechanics is that things we think of as particles also, in circumstances, behave like waves, and that things we think of as waves (such as light) also, in circumstances, behave like particles. When light behaves like a particle, we call that particle a photon. Einstein first posited them, in 1905, when he demonstrated that the only way to understand the photovoltaic effect (used in every solar panel producing electricity) was to assume light hits the panel like particles, but the name wasn't coined until in 1916 by American physicist Leonard Troland, from Ancient Greek phōtós, light + -(i)on, and popularized by American physical chemist Gilbert N. Lewis starting in 1926.
(Still no picture because subatomic. Yes, fine, I could show you a pretty pic of a light beam split by a prism, but that's the light not the photon.)
---L.
