5. James Clark Maxwell: 1865
Published
his “Dynamical theory of
the electromagnetic field” which
combined the discoveries of
Newton,
Young, Foucault, Oersted and Faraday into a unified theory of electromagnetic
radiation
Showed that
light consists of electromagnetic
transverse waves whose frequency of
vibration (n)
and
wavelength (l) are related by
nl = u (nu)
Where u is the the speed of light in the
medium of study (for a vacuum u
= c, where c= 3x1010 cm/sec)
so nl = c
We need to concern ourselves with how molecules interact
with electromagnetic waves.