I request clarification The sun are stars radiates electromagnetic energy we experience as light. Is that the nature of the photon? Physicist refer to photons as if it was sometimes a particle.
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Light comes in the form of both. In some cases we can observe it acting as a particle and in some cases it can be observed to act like a wave. However light is actually in both forms at the same time. This is what is known as wave-particle duality and it is seen in all fundamental particles.
The first proof for light behaving as a wave came from Young's Double Slit experiment which was first performed by Thomas Young in $1801$. Light was passed through two slits and diffracted causing patterns that would only come from a wave passing through the slits.
Then in $1905$ Albert Einstein published a paper proving that light in some situations light also behaves like a particle. This is due to the photoelectric effect - where individual photons $($particles of light$)$ hit electrons which can then be detected. Due to the nature of how this worked it could only come from light behaving like a particle.
From this the idea that light is actually both a wave and a particle came around and due to the work of many physicists in the early $20^{th}$ century the concept of wave particle duality was formed.
Jordan Abbott
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