One point of view envisions light as wave-like in nature, producing energy that traverses through space in a manner similar to the ripples spreading across the surface of a still pond after being disturbed by a dropped rock. The opposing view holds that light is composed of a steady stream of particles, much like tiny droplets of water sprayed from a garden hose nozzle. During the past few centuries, the consensus of opinion has wavered with one view prevailing for a period of time, only to be overturned by evidence for the other. Only during the first decades of the twentieth century was enough compelling evidence collected to provide a comprehensive answer, and to everyone's surprise, both theories turned out to be correct, at least in part.
In the early eighteenth century, the argument about the nature of light had turned the scientific community into divided camps that fought vigorously over the validity of their favorite theories. One group of scientists, who subscribed to the wave theory, centered their arguments on the discoveries of Dutchman Christiaan Huygens. The opposing camp cited Sir Isaac Newton's prism experiments as proof that light traveled as a shower of particles, each proceeding in a straight line until it was refracted, absorbed, reflected, diffracted or disturbed in some other manner. Although Newton, himself, appeared to have some doubt about his corpuscular theory on the nature of light, his prestige in the scientific community held so much weight that his advocates ignored all other evidence during their ferocious battles