Mysteries of the quantum universe and Albert Einstein’s discovery of photons

It all started with a simple experiment in the 20th century. When light was shined on a piece of metal, electrons were expected to get the necessary energy from the light and fly away from the surface. The next step will be to point a detector at this metal to measure the energy of the electrons, a phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect.

At that time, scientists claimed that light consisted of waves of electricity and magnetism. Electrons accumulate enough energy to break away from the surface, regardless of the frequency of the light..

But that’s not what happens. Instead, only light above a certain frequency could move the electrons, and no matter how intense the light, the electrons always left the metal with the same energy.

Einstein’s contribution

The result of this experiment changed physics forever. What could have happened? That’s when Albert Einstein, one of the most well-known physicists in human history, appeared on the scene.

As incredible as it may seem, it did not take him long to formulate his hypothesis on the subject. What we perceive as wavy, fluctuating waves of electricity and magnetism are actually a flood of small, discrete, distinct and indivisible rays of luminous matter; So, according to Einstein, light was quantized.

This means that instead of transferring a continuous stream, light transfers its energy in well-defined amounts proportional to its frequency. This quantity was called the light quantum by Einstein..

Each quantum represents the smallest amount of lightweight material you can have. And since these rays cannot be interrupted, it is not possible to have fractional proportions of light matter. One unit of luminous matter, two units of luminous matter, etc. you can have, but never for example 1.34 or any other fractional number.

This solved the problem of the photoelectric effect, and this hypothesis has not been refuted to this day. Electrons need a certain amount of energy to move away from the metal. And this energy is determined not by the brightness or intensity of the light, but by its frequency.

Higher frequencies correspond to more energetic photons (as particles are called). If the energy was too slow, electrons would never escape the metal. When a photon hits electrons, they release a specific, fixed amount of energy, which explains why they always escape in the same way..

quantum revolution

Einstein’s discovery of the photon was a real revolution in the entire scientific world. One of the differences between classical physics and what is known as quantum mechanics is that observation changes the way we look at matter.

In other words, it was previously believed that the state of a particle would never change, no matter how the observation was made. However, the discovery of the photon changed this perspective.

This is because the impact action of this quantum particle creates effectsThis culminates in one of the main assumptions of the theory: the act of observation changes the state of a quantum system.

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