OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:01:31 -0200, Doug Morse <morse at edoug.org> escribi�:

> So, showing of my physics ignorance:  I presume then that this means that
> light, say from the sun, is actually sending particles to the earth,  
> since the
> space between is mostly vacuum?  Or is there enough material in the
> near-vacuum of space for propogation to occur?

Before the famous Michelson-Morley experiment (end of s. XIX), some  
physicists would have said "light propagates over ether, some kind of  
matter that fills the whole space but has no measurable mass", but the  
experiment failed to show any evidence of it existence.
Then it was hard to explain light propagation as a wave (but Maxwell  
equations appeared to be so right!), and previous experiments showed that  
light was not made of particles either. Until DeBroglie formulated its  
hypothesis of dual nature of matter (and light): wave and particle at the  
same time.

-- 
Gabriel Genellina