The Nature of Light

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the quest to understand the nature of light and presents it as the greatest scientific quest of all. It shows how breakthroughs in the understanding of light triggered vital advances in science as a whole. The field covered is from Epicurus of Samos in the fourth century B.C. to the quantum mechanical understanding in the 20th century.

From the Paper:

"Science in the proper sense began in the eighth century within the Moslem sphere, and scientific experimentation became a refined process with the Cairene physicist Alhazen, whose primary subject of study was light. But the practice of science in the Moslem sphere was a short-lived explosion. After 300 years of fruitfulness there was a sudden abandonment of the whole thrust. The twelfth century Syrian mystic and polymath al-Ghazali initiated a comprehensive eradication of scientific endeavour from the sphere of Islam, something that can be said to have been achieved with finality within two centuries from the date of his death in 1111 AD."

Sample of Sources Used:

• White, Michael. Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer. New ed. London: Fourth Estate, 1998.

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