can we conclude from the inerference pattern that light has a transverse or longitudinal nature??? IF YES,den how cn we conclude it??

aDear shalini,

In reality energy can be transformed from one point to the other by two modes. One is by the passage of massive particles. Example electrical energy is being transformed by movement of electrons in case of metallic conductors and by the ions in case of fluids.
The other mode is propagation of wave. Wave is basically categorized as mechanical and electromagnetic. Mechanical wave badly needs a material medium where as electromagnetic can pass even through vacuum ie free space. Mechanical wave is by two nature. Longitudinal and transverse. Sound waves are longitudinal by nature. But light is not a mechanical wave and so it is able to pass even through free space ie right from Sun to earth. Only because of this problem Sir Issac Newton was compelled to consider light as a particle called corpuscle and hence he was caught in the wrong trap that light travels faster in denser medium than in rarer medium. Christian Huygens proposed the wave theory of light but he too committed a mistake by assuming light wave, being a mechanical, needs a medium called ether medium. Ether means everywhere. But nowhere, so far, such a medium is found to exist. Later James Clark Maxwell proposed electromagnetic wave theory stating that light is not a mechanical and so no need to have any material medium. Even through free space it can easily traverse. But later because of the phenomenon of photoelectric emission again a problem arose. No where we have seen that wave traversing in a medium kicks a particle. Same way it is so difficult to think that an electromagnetic wave can kick the electrons right from the atom. So quatum theory was proposed by Albert Einstein as he borrowed the idea of quantum right from Max Planck.

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