the good doctor on: Photons

Blog #37

Continuing with history… 100 Years ago…

1921, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel prize for Physics for his work on light.

1905, Einstein published a paper on the nature of light. Up to that point light was seen as functioning like a wave. Einstein theorized that light also behaved like a particle, concluding that it was divided into discrete packets of energy: called photons.

(This is a shout out to my Class of 87 hockey team, “The Photons”, who knew that our mascot would come to have such notoriety.)

Later work by Einstein and others found the working relationship between the photon and its predecessor: the electron. What they discovered was that to get energy into an electron, you have to use a photon, and when an electron is induced to give up energy, the result is a photon.

As they say, the rest is history. From this discovery, new technologies have been developed: solar cells, digital cameras, fibre-optic data links, and LED lighting. The latest issue of the Economist has an entire section dedicated to the research and technologies that have to do with light, including some really interesting new developments: super sensitive digital receptors for telescopes, chirped-pulse amplifiers, gravitational wave interferometers, and even the possibility of laser-powered mirror-sails on interstellar craft. It is crazy to think that Einstein’s work could open doors to such discoveries.

Of course, eye care has improved dramatically with all these developments as many of our tests and procedures would not be possible without them; not to mention laser surgery and all the wonderful things that ophthalmologists can do to repair damage and correct eyesight. Then there are the computers and screens and…

Til Next Week,

The Good Doctor, Dr. Mark Germain, Burlington Optometrist