Photoelectric effect classical mechanics

Textbooks frequently cite this work as strong empirical evidence for the existence of photons as quanta of electromagnetic energy localized in space and time. However, it has been shown that [8] a complete account of the photoelectric effect can be obtained by treating the electromagnetic field as a classical Maxwellian field and the detector is treated according to the laws of quantum mechanics. 

QM grew out of studies of blackbody radiation and of the photoelectric effect. Besides QM, radioactivity and relativity contributed to the transition from classical to modem physics. The classical Rutherford nuclear atom, the Bohr atom, and the Schrodinger wave-mechanical atom are discussed. Hybridization, wavefunctions, Slater determinants and other basic concepts are explained. For obtaining eigenvectors and eigenvalues from the secular equations the elegant and simple matrix diagonalization method is explained and used. All the necessary mathematics is explained. 

Describe the photoelectric effect, and discnss how related paradoxes of classical physics were resolved by quantum mechanics (Section 4.4, Problems 23 and 24). 

Classical mechanics was unable to explain certain phenomena black body radiation, the photoelectric effect, and the stability of atoms and molecules, as well as their spectra. Quantum mechanics, created mainly hy Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrddinger, explained these effects. The new mechanics was based on six postulates ... 

At first it was thought that the electronic motions could be described by classical mechanics. However, it is impossible to describe the microscopic world by classical mechanics. It became apparent, from for example the photoelectric effect, that electromagnetic radiation was not always wavelike, but, in some circumstances, consisted of discrete, particle-like, units of magnitude called quanta. 

The unexplained phenomena included the observation of atomic line spectra, the nuclear structure of the atom, the nature of light, and the photoelectric effect. Certain experimental observations in these areas did not conform to the expectations of classical mechanics. But to really see why a new mechanics was necessary, it is important to review each of these phenomena and understand why classical mechanics did not explain the observations. 

The complete definiteness of nature as described by classical mechanics was destroyed by the necessity of assigning an inertia to electromagnetic radiation (photoelectric effect)...We can do without particles but... 

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