• Question: What was the first ever theory to explain light?

    Asked by Hi to Ed, Guido, Hugh, Stef on 18 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Ed Rial

      Ed Rial answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      Hi Hi

      This is similar to your other question, but the first theories were proposed by the ancient greeks. Because they thought everything was made of fire, earth, air and water they at first thought that light was the result of a fire in your eye.

      By about 55BC a man named Lucretius (also Greek) (also ancient) had thought that light was made of tiny particles that travelled in a straight line, very similar to how we treat photons as particles today!

      Ed

    • Photo: Mariastefania De Vido

      Mariastefania De Vido answered on 19 Mar 2015:

      Hi Hi! 🙂

      Ed is right: first ever known theory about light was formulated by Empedocles in 500BC, stating that light was a sort of fire flowing out from our eyes, hitting the objects in our field of view and reflecting back to our eyes. But if light originates in the eyes, why we cannot see when the Sun goes down? Empedocles considered light emitted by the Sun as a different kind of light and suggested (well ahead of his time!) that Earth obscured the light coming from the Sun by blocking the Sun’s rays. He regarded light coming from the Sun as a facilitator that enabled the eye’s light to function correctly (no sunlight, no sight possible). Even though this theory looks absolutely flawed to modern people, it remained an accepted reality for centuries.

      Stef

      A patriotic note – Lucretius wasn’t Greek: he was a Roman philosopher who wrote the poem “De rerum natura” (translated: “On the nature of things”) to divulge the theories of the Greek philosopher Epicurus.

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