The title and introduction of the paper read: ON A HEURISTIC POINT OF VIEW CONCERNING THE PRODUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION OF LIGHT by A. Einstein [Annalen der Physik 17 (1905): 132-148] There exists a profound formal difference between the theoretical conceptions physicists have formed about gases and other ponderable bodies, and Maxwell's theory of electromagnetic processes in so-called empty space. While we conceive of the state of a body as being completely determined by the positions and velocities of a very large but nevertheless finite number of atoms and electrons, we use continuous spatial functions to determine the electromagnetic state of a space. so that a finite number…
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