If you don't argue, it's not clear. The scientific knowledge we read in books today has been explored and verified by predecessors. In other words, knowledge can only develop and progress if it can withstand challenges and tests. This is especially true of physical knowledge. If you firmly believe that there is eternal truth, you will never find the truth.

This is a small paper about the role of scientific debate in the development of physics, taking the nature of light as an example. Its purpose is to avoid dogmatism and authoritarianism in popular science learning, especially in scientific learning, and lose curiosity and courage to question authority. It involves many physicists and achievements in the history of optics and is quoted from books.

When it comes to light, every physicist who studies optical phenomena cannot avoid several questions: What is light? What is the essence of light? What is it made of? It was these short and pithy questions that triggered a vigorous debate in the history of physics, and it was this debate that promoted the development of optics. Although it is tortuous, it has been advancing.

The origin of optics can be traced back to 2000-3000 years ago. Mo Jing, written by Mozi in ancient China, recorded many optical phenomena and laws, such as projection ("scenery does not migrate") and pinhole imaging ("scenery"). People with light, if they shine, the people below are also tall; The tallest person will also go down. The feet cover the lights, so the scenery is at the top; The first cover is glazed, so it becomes a scene. There is an end in the distance and light, so it is also in the scene library. ") and so on. The west also has a long record of studying optical knowledge, such as Euclid's reflective optics, which studies the reflection of light. However, it was not until the Renaissance that optics really became a discipline, and the foundation of geometric optics was laid from the establishment of radiation law and refraction law. This has become a prerequisite for the beginning of this great debate in modern times.

/kloc-in the middle of the 0/7th century, people learned more about light, and there were two possible hypotheses: the particle theory and the wave theory. Literally, particle theory regards light as a kind of "light atom", while wave theory thinks that light is not a material particle, but a wave generated by the vibration of a medium, so it also puts forward the concept of "ether": an invisible and intangible medium as the propagation medium of light.

Descartes first advocated wave theory in his book Methodology, arguing that light is essentially a kind of pressure, which propagates in a completely elastic medium (ether) filled with all spaces, and the propagation speed is infinite. The war has been filled with smoke, but no one predicted its duration, intensity and far-reaching influence at that time. Physicists have argued for centuries that the battlefield not only runs through the whole process of optical development, but also makes the whole physics undergo earth-shaking changes.

Particle theory has a longer history, but with the development of optics, wave theory is the first to fire. Hooke, a member of physics, clearly claimed that light is a kind of vibration in Microscopy published by 1667, and judged that light is a kind of fast pulse similar to water wave according to the film interference phenomenon of mica sheet. Then, Huygens developed Hooke's thought, and he further proposed that light is the propagation process of the vibration of tiny particles in the luminous body in the ether that permeates the space, and the way of light propagation is similar to sound, rather than the movement of bullets or arrows as envisaged by particle theory.

Although Huygens developed the wave theory, inferred that light propagates as spherical waves like sound waves and introduced Huygens' principle, he could not explain the interference, diffraction and polarization of light because he regarded light as longitudinal waves like sound waves.

Wave theory was once a sensation because of Hooke's participation, but although another person came, it was submerged by the dark clouds of particle theory for more than 100 years. This man is Newton, one of the greatest physicists in history.

Newton tends to say that the combination and decomposition of particles and light is compared to the mixing and separation of particles of different colors. This was strongly criticized and condemned by Hooke. Hook was then the president of the Royal Society of Physics, and Newton was elected a member of the Royal Society for inventing the telescope. Newton's papers were reviewed by Hooke and Boyle. We still hear about the discord between Newton and Hooke. It is conceivable that the fierce contradictions at that time were physically incompatible. This contradiction also intensified the debate between particle theory and fluctuation theory at that time, and both factions had their own supporters.

Later, we also know the result. Newton published the book "Principles" and built a building of classical mechanics, which is known as an altar. Hook died in 1703, and Newton published his other masterpiece "Optics" in 1704. In the following 100 year, regarded as an unshakable truth, that is, representing authority, wave theory ushered in a long night.

Although authority is heavy, it is difficult to climb mountains, but only by climbing mountains and breaking authority can we see the sunshine of the new world, otherwise we can only survive in the shadow.

Let's call it a day. For follow-up, please see next issue.