Around 1700, Newton concluded that light was a group of particles (corpuscular theory). Around the same time, there were other scholars who thought that light might instead be a wave (wave theory). Light travels in a straight line, and therefore it was only natural for Newton to think of it as extremely small particles that are emitted by a light source and reflected by objects. The corpuscular theory, however, cannot explain wave-like light phenomena such as diffraction and interference. On the other hand, the wave theory cannot clarify why photons fly out of metal that is exposed to light (the phenomenon is called the photoelectric effect, which was discovered at the end of the 19th century). In this manner, the great physicists have continued to debate and demonstrate the true nature of light over the centuries.