Nomenclature

Overview Login   14.11.2007 

The photon was originally called a “light quantum” (das Lichtquant) by Albert Einstein.[5] The modern name “photon” derives from the Greek word for light, φῶς, (transliterated phôs), and was coined in 1926 by the physical chemist Gilbert N. Lewis, who published a speculative theory[9] in which photons were “uncreatable and indestructible”. Although Lewis' theory was never accepted—being contradicted by many experiments—his new name, photon, was adopted immediately by most physicists. Isaac Asimov credits Arthur Compton with defining quanta of light as photons in 1927.[10][11]

In physics, a photon is usually denoted by the symbol γ, the Greek letter gamma. This symbol for the photon probably derives from gamma rays, which were discovered and named in 1900 by Villard[12][13] and shown to be a form of electromagnetic radiation in 1914 by Rutherford and Andrade.[14] In chemistry and optical engineering, photons are usually symbolized by hν, the energy of a photon, where h is Planck's constant and the Greek letter ν (nu) is the photon's frequency. Much less commonly, the photon can be symbolized by hf, where its frequency is denoted by f.

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STATUS: draft - 14.11.2007