Light enables us to see the world around us and this sensation of vision has led to a fascination with the nature and properties of light light a very short introduction discusses early attempts to explain light the opposing particulate and wave theories by scientists such as isaac newton and christiaan huygens how light was recognized as an electromagnetic wave in the 19th century and . In this very short introduction ian walmsley discusses early attempts to explain light and the development of apparently opposing particulate and wave theories by scientists such as isaac newton and christiaan huygens he shows how light was recognized as an electromagnetic wave in the 19th century and the development of the quantum mechanics . Very short introductions covers the physics of light its historical development and significance and its applications in modern science introduces the vast array of modern optical technologies from long distance communications to dvd and cd readers and looks at exciting new developments using . Turning to the future of optics walmsley concludes by looking at some of the most exciting new developments using quantum light sources in communications and computing about the series the very short introductions series from oxford university press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area