The photoelectric effect
PROFESSOR: Last time, we spoke about photons in the context of an interferometer. The Mach-Zehnder interferometer. And we saw the very unusual properties of photons and interference, and how relatively simple interference a effect can be used to produce a very surprising measurement. Today we're going to backtrack and go from the beginning, and think about photons as physicists did 100 years ago, and how, by thinking about photons, they pretty much came up with quantum mechanics. So we want to trace this back. And the best place to start, probably, is with a photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect is an experiment done by Hertz in 1887, in which he irradiated plates. That means shine light, high energy beams of light, on metal plate, and he found that electrons were released. Those were called photo electrons. And therefore, you would get a photoelectric current from those electrons. So this is the effect we want to discuss now, is the photoelectric effect. And...