Euclid (330-275 B.C.) summarized fundamental knowledge of optics, such as reflection, diffusion and vision, into a book called “Optics”.
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) 965-1040 left major historic works including the “Book of Optics” that covers experiments and observation on light reflection and refraction through the use of lenses and mirrors. He also authored treatises on reflection from concave mirrors, refraction from glass spheres, visual perception, light from the moon and stars, and the structure of space.
Sir Isaac Newton 1643-1727 greatly contributed to the development of the science of optics by collecting technology on lenses, prisms, mirrors, telescopes, microscopes and optical (mirror/lens) polishing. In 1668, he fabricated a reflecting telescope having no chromatic aberrations. In a paper presented in 1672, he announced his “New Theory on Light and Color” in which he proclaimed that “light is a mixture of various colors having different refractivity” rather than “the pure white (sunlight)” proposed by Aristotle, and demonstrated his theory in the famous prism experiment. In 1704, he authored the book “Opticks” where he reveals his “Light Particle Theory.”
Christiaan Huygens, 1629-1695 published a paper on light advocating his theory that light is a wave or wavefront. He utilized this theory of light as a wave to explain light reflection and refraction phenomenon. After repeated stormy debates opposing Newton’s light particle theory, Huygens’ theory that light is a wave became the mainstream scientific concept.
n 1802, Sir Humphry Davy, an English physician, created the first electric light by passing a current through a platinum strip.
in 1807 Thomas Young, (1773-1829) showed that when light coming from a point light source is shined onto two pinholes, interference fringes can be observed on a screen an appropriate distance away (Young’s Experiment) and advocated his theory that light behaves like a wave.
James Clerk Maxwell, 1831-1879 theoretically predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves, the fact that electromagnetic waves propagate at the same speed as light, and as horizontal waves.
Max Planck – Electromganetic radiation is emitted as quanta
Heinrich Hertz – First to prove the existence of electromagnetic waves
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955– his work on theoretically revealing the photoelectric effect based on the light quantum hypothesis won him the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921.
REFERENCES:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-31903-2_1
https://web.stanford.edu/~oas/HSHS08/HSHSoutline1.pdf
http://quantumhertz.com/index.php/home/hsc-physics-space/a-brief-history-of-light/
https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Light_1/
https://www.synchrotron-soleil.fr/en/videos/history-light-spectrum
https://www.wired.com/2008/12/gallery-lights/
https://science.jrank.org/pages/3929/Light.html
https://alumni.duke.edu/magazine/articles/brief-history-light