History of the modeling of light

[A. Neumaier]

Einsteins 1905 approach to the photoelectric effect, which in fact does not prove the necessity to quantize the electromagnetic field

I don't know, who first did the derivation

That a quantum detector responds to classical light precisely according to Einstein's formulas for the photoeffect was already shown briefly in 1926 (the year the Schroedinger equation was born) by Wentzel, and was described in full detail in 1964 (when the development of the laser strongly stimulated the investigation of light matter interactions) by Mandel, Sudarshan and Wolf. Nonclassical effects appear only in experiments where highly nonclassical light is used.

For a history of the modeling of light from Huygens' wave optics to the modern concept of light according to quantum electrodynamics see the slides of my lecture on Classical Models for Quantum Light given on April 7, 2016 at the University of Linz. See also the slides for Part II, given the next day, where I draw conclusions related to my thermal interpretation of quantum mechanics.

 

[vanhees71]

Thanks a lot. Of course, it turns out that Schrödinger had this in his IVth paper of the famous series on "Quantization as eigenvalue problem". It's the complete theory of dispersion from the point of view of his wave mechanics. It's cited by Wentzel in the above cited paper.

 

[Simon Phoenix]

That a quantum detector responds to classical light precisely according to Einstein's formulas for the photoeffect was already shown briefly in 1926 (the year the Schroedinger equation was born) by Wentzel,

That's cool - I didn't know that - thanks for this.

When I first started out in quantum optics (not even a decade after Mandel's anti-bunching experiment) it was still an active area trying to figure out genuinely quantum mechanical features of light. It still kind of surprises me that it took so long (not a criticism - more a comment on the subtlety and difficulty of pinning it down properly).

I'd mistakenly thought it was Lamb who first did this (or possibly Jaynes who was big into semi-classical treatments)

 

[Simon Phoenix]

it turns out that Schrödinger had this in his IVth paper of the famous series on "Quantization as eigenvalue problem"

Also very cool - and thanks for this. I need to read more of the original papers - these guys were amazing. It must have been an awesome time to be doing physics.

 

[A. Neumaier]

I didn't know that - thanks for this.

Did you know that Stokes described the qubit already in 1852? It is also in my history slides...