- #1
Master Wayne
- 26
- 3
In the book "The Quantum Story", by Jim Baggott, we find the following:
"[...] Many physicists, including Planck and Bohr, dismissed the light-quantum. They preferred to think of quantization as having its origin in atomic structure, retaining Maxwell's classical wave description for electromagnetic radiation."
I don't get this. How could they believe that light was emitted and absorbed in a discrete fashion, but that light itself wasn't discrete? If atoms were emitting quanta of light, how could light not be quantized?
"[...] Many physicists, including Planck and Bohr, dismissed the light-quantum. They preferred to think of quantization as having its origin in atomic structure, retaining Maxwell's classical wave description for electromagnetic radiation."
I don't get this. How could they believe that light was emitted and absorbed in a discrete fashion, but that light itself wasn't discrete? If atoms were emitting quanta of light, how could light not be quantized?