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Until the time of Isaac Newton (1642–1727), most scientists thought that light consisted
of streams of particles (called corpuscles) emitted by light sources.
Galileo and others tried (unsuccessfully) to measure the speed of light. Around 1665,
evidence of wave properties of light began to be discovered.
By the early 19th century, evidence that light is a wave had grown very persuasive. In
1873, James Clerk Maxwell predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves and
calculated their speed of propagation.
This development, along with the experimental work of Heinrich Hertz starting in 1887,
showed conclusively that light is indeed an electromagnetic wave.
Wave Front as the locus of all adjacent points at which the phase of vibration of a
physical quantity associated with the wave is the same.
A Ray is an imaginary line along the direction of travel of the wave.