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Although Max Planck introduced the concept of light quanta in 1900, he did not accept it as real until much later. (Even as late as 1913 he refused to believe it, apparently (see: http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/18/4/2).
By 1920 he had accepted that light quanta were real and posed the following question (in his Nobel address given in June 1920):
Has this question ever been completely answered?
AM
By 1920 he had accepted that light quanta were real and posed the following question (in his Nobel address given in June 1920):
"There is in particular one problem whose exhaustive solution could provide considerable elucidation. What becomes of the energy of a photon after complete emission? Does it spread out in all directions with further propagation in the sense of Huygens' wave theory, so constantly taking up more space, in boundless progressive attenuation? Or does it fly out like a projectile in one direction in the sense of Newton's emanation theory? In the first case, the quantum would no longer be in the position to concentrate energy upon a single point in space in such a way as to release an electron from its atomic bond, and in the second case, the main triumph of the Maxwell theory - the continuity between the static and the dynamic fields and, with it, the complete understanding we have enjoyed, until now, of the fully investigated interference phenomena - would have to be sacrificed, both being very unhappy consequences for today's theoreticians."
Has this question ever been completely answered?
AM