ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

[Monte Davis]

Lawrence Bryan wrote:

>
> Interesting to think about the point of view of a photon.

Careful, that's what got young Einstein started.

Well, photons came later... but in his young-Kit-like days, trying to 
get his mind around Maxwell's equations, he envisioned traveling with a 
wave of light. From that PoV, the mutual I-push-you, you-push-me of the 
electric and magnetic "components" of the wave as Maxwell had described 
it (see Landseadel et al.2007  on polarization) no longer worked.

Convinced that the laws of physics shouldn't be different simply because 
of your state of motion, E. considered that an intolerable loose end -- 
and kept pulling on it until the whole edifice of "independent" space 
and time unraveled.