History
The concept of messenger particles dates back to the 18th century when the French physicist Charles Coulomb showed that the electrostatic force between electrically charged objects follows a law similar to Newton's Law of Gravitation. In time, this relationship became known as Coulomb's law. By 1862, Hermann von Helmholtz had described a ray of light as the "quickest of all the messengers". In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed the existence of a light-particle in answer to the question: "what are light quanta?"
In 1923, at the Washington University in St. Louis, Arthur Holly Compton demonstrated an effect now known as Compton scattering. This effect is only explainable if light can behave as a stream of particles and it convinced the physics community of the existence of Einstein's light-particle. Lastly, in 1926, one year before the theory of quantum mechanics was published, Gilbert N. Lewis introduced the term "photon", which soon became the name for Einstein’s light particle. From there, the concept of messenger particles developed further.
Read more about this topic: Force Carrier
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)