The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity.
We thought it would be nice to have atoms interact in such a gentle way with the photons that they would just take an imprint of the photons, so that many atoms could 'see' the same photon and it would give rise to a lot of interesting effects. Myself and my colleagues had this project for a very long time and we were finally able to observe it.
The bubbles are thinner than wavelengths of light.
The rotation of the polarization plane is extraordinarily small in all gases, thus also in sodium vapour.
We have learnt through experience that when an electrical ray strikes the surface of an atom, an electron, and in some circumstances a second and even a third electron, can be detached.
When a photon comes down, it interacts with electrons throughout the glass, not just on the surface. The photon and electrons do some kind of dance, the net result of which is the same as if the photon hit only on the surface.
It was not simply out of a spirit of contradiction that I exposed a light source to magnetic forces. The idea came to me during an investigation of the effect discovered by Kerr on light reflected by magnetic mirrors.
My PhD project was actually doing something that required a high-intensity laser. It was supposed to work in a way that many, many photons of light would interact with an atom all at the same time.
The process of radiation may be, and is, continuous - at any rate within limits extending to far smaller quantities than the quantum.
The question of how the eye works - that is, what happens when a photon of light first impinges on the retina - simply could not be answered at that time.
For her PhD, Maria Goeppert Mayer, a theoretical physicist, came up with the idea of multi-photon physics. That means an atom absorbs two or more photons simultaneously.
