Back Korpuskeltheorie ALS Балістычная тэорыя Byelorussian Teoria corpuscular de la llum Catalan Korpuskeltheorie German Argiaren teoria korpuskular Basque Théorie corpusculaire de la lumière French प्रकाश का कणिका सिद्धान्त Hindi Korpuskularna teorija Croatian Teoria corpuscolare della luce Italian 光の粒子説 Japanese
In optics, the corpuscular theory of light states that light is made up of small discrete particles called "corpuscles" (little particles) which travel in a straight line with a finite velocity and possess impetus. This was based on an alternate description of atomism of the time period.
Isaac Newton laid the foundations for this theory through his work in optics. This early conception of the particle theory of light was an early forerunner to the modern understanding of the photon. This theory came to dominate the conceptions of light in the eighteenth century, displacing the previously prominent vibration theories, where light was viewed as "pressure" of the medium between the source and the receiver, first championed by René Descartes, and later in a more refined form by Christiaan Huygens.[1] It would fall out of favor in the early nineteenth century, as the wave theory of light amassed new experimental evidence.
- ^ Paolo Mancoso, “Accoustics and Optics,” in The Cambridge History of Science Volume 3: Early Modern Science ed. Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 623-626.