When is light particle like and when is it wave like....please provide an elaborate answer if you can???

Question

THANKS! ; )

Answer 1

Young's double slit experiment proved that light acts as a wave. We actually did an experiment with a single slit in my lab class where we shined a red laser light on a very thin slit, on the other end instead of one line showing a bunch of lines showed up. That is interference and it is a property of waves. The photoelectric effect on the other hand proves that light is a particle, again we recently did this experiment as well. The photoelectric effect is when light shines on a metal, it excites electrons and they eventually leave the metal with energy proportional to the frequency of the light. This is in direct "violation" of the wave theory of light which predicts that the energy of the discharged electrons would be proportional to the intensity of the light, but this is obviously not true.

So, light is both a wave and a particle.