👉 Light particles, often referred to as photons, are fundamental entities that constitute light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. These particles are massless and exhibit both wave-like and particle-like properties, a duality that is central to quantum mechanics. The concept of light particles traces back to ancient Greek philosophers like Democritus and Epicurus, who proposed the idea of atoms, but it was not until the 17th century that the modern understanding began to take shape. Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch scientist, was among the first to mathematically describe light as a wave in the 1678 treatise "Traité de la lumière." However, the particle nature of light was more definitively established by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he explained the photoelectric effect using the concept of light quanta—photons. This duality, encapsulated in the wave-particle duality principle, underpins much of modern physics and explains phenomena ranging from the behavior of atoms to the functioning of solar cells.
