The conception of photons–Part II

Abstract

In this second part of the article, we present how S N Bose’s 1924 paper provided a systematic derivation of Planck’s formula using the conception of photons, filling the major lacuna that was preventing the acceptance of the photon concept by the physics community. This derivation further widened the chasm between classical conceptions and the actual behaviour of the microscopic world as already heralded by the photon proposal. In particular, the very concept of a quantum as an ‘independent’ entity even when not interacting with other entities was rendered invalid. Classical intuition was subverted in Bose’s derivation by a new rule, regarding counting of independent states of the system rather than counting individual quanta. We discuss the implications of the quantum mechanics that eventually emerged, showing that the seeds of some of its uncanny conceptual content were already foreshadowed in Einstein’s proposal. While he was instrumental in setting off the revolution, the full implications of the revolution became unpalatable to him. We may expect that as experiments make the quantum world more familiar, the currently projected enigmas will gradually disappear.