Max von Laue Quotes

For X-rays, the phenomenon of diffraction by crystals was a natural consequence of the idea that X-rays are waves analogous to light and differ from it only by having a smaller wavelength.

The model I came up with in 1964 is just the invention of a rather strange sort of medium that looks the same in all directions and produces a kind of refraction that is a little bit more complicated than that of light in glass or water.

I look at light as a material. It is physical. It is photons. Yes, it exhibits wave behavior, but it is a thing.

There is no greater mystery to me than that of light traveling through darkness.

For in 1900 all electromagnetic radiation of longer wavelengths was already known at least to the extent that one could not seek in it the more striking characteristics of X-rays such as, for example, the strong penetrating power.

You have to understand the nature of light.

Mark Horowitz and I built it onto an optical bench in the lab. We spent and eight-hour span putting this optical light path together.

Are not rays of light very small bodies emitted from shining substances?

A radio telescope pointing at the sky receives radiation not only from space, but also from other sources including the ground, the earth's atmosphere, and the components of the radio telescope itself.

I am interested in the physicality of light itself.

The bubbles are thinner than wavelengths of light.

The speed of light sucks.

There is no doubt that I, also, had long been aware of the problem, i.e. producing X-ray interferences, before the inherent difficulties had finally been surmounted.

When the shot is afterwards subjected to white light, colour appears because of selective reflection.

The process of radiation may be, and is, continuous - at any rate within limits extending to far smaller quantities than the quantum.

I first met the subject of X-ray diffraction of crystals in the pages of the book W. H. Bragg wrote for school children in 1925, 'Concerning the Nature of Things.'

Light in Nature creates the movement of colors.

During exposure, interference takes place between the incident rays and those reflected by the mirror, with the formation of interference fringes half a wavelength distant from each other.

Whenever you look at light, basically it's just air. It has no tactileness to it. It's totally without density.

The rotation of the polarization plane is extraordinarily small in all gases, thus also in sodium vapour.

Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate. One thing at least is certain, light has weight. One thing is certain and the rest debate. Light rays, when near the Sun, do not go straight.

The plate at each point only sends back to the eye the simple colour imprinted. The other colours are destroyed by interference. The eye thus perceives at each point the constituent colour of the image.

Along a series of lines running from longer to shorter wavelengths the effect of the electric field becomes greater as the serial numbers increase - that is, as the wavelength decreases.

Intensity like signal strength will generally fall off with distance from the source, although it also depends on the local conditions and the pathway from the source to the point.

It was not simply out of a spirit of contradiction that I exposed a light source to magnetic forces. The idea came to me during an investigation of the effect discovered by Kerr on light reflected by magnetic mirrors.