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Single-Photon Sources and Detectors Book: Chapter 1: Introduction
Published
Author(s)
Joshua C. Bienfang, Jingyun Fan, Alan L. Migdall, Sergey V. Polyakov
Abstract
In the beginning there was light. And it was good. Not long thereafter people began to look for a comprehensive understanding of its nature. While the publication record starts o a little spotty, in the fth century BC the Greek philosopher Empedocles concluded that light consists of rays that emanate from the eye. This point of view was questioned using what today might be characterized as a local realism argument by Euclid in his classic text on light propagation Optica. Euclid hypothesized that rays of light are emitted by external sources. But it was not until Ibn al-Haytham in 1000 AD that this view was put on a scienti c footing.
Bienfang, J.
, Fan, J.
, Migdall, A.
and Polyakov, S.
(2013),
Single-Photon Sources and Detectors Book: Chapter 1: Introduction, Elsevier, Philadelphia, PA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=914574
(Accessed October 7, 2025)