论爱因斯坦《关于光的产生和转化的一个试探性观点》一文的得失

Einstein's 1905 Paper"On a Heuristic Point of View about the Creation and Conversion of Light" Revisited

本文评论了爱因斯坦1905年提出光量子概念的论文,强调应当区别光的产生和转化以及光的自 由传播这两种过程。以光电效应和康普顿散射为代表的一切有关实验证明了的都是光在与物质相互作用时 以光子的形式出现,并没有证明光在传播中以光子流的形式存在。根据电磁场的量子理论,光在传播中一般 不处在光子数的本征态,不适宜运用光子的语言来描述。

Einstein's 1905 paper,in which he proposed the notion of light quanta,is reviewed.The difference between the interacting processes of light with matter and the free propagating processes of light is emphasized. All relevant experiments including photoelectric effect and Compton scattering just show that light manifests as one and other photons in its interacting with matter,but does not so in its free propagating. According to the quantum theory of electromagnetic field, the propagating light is not in the eigenstate of photon number generally,and could not be described by the language of photons.