Light: Waves or Particles?

Is light electromagnetic waves described by Maxwell's equations, or a stream of "light particles" or "photons" as described by Newton? Is heat transfer by radiation an electromagnetic wave phenomenon, or is it a stream of small packets/particles of "energy quanta"?

This is a basic question in physics and also of climate science since our climate is a thermodynamic heat engine powered by radiation from the Sun in the visible spectrum, and cooled by infrared radiation to outer space, with the Earth absorbing high-frequency light and emitting low-frequency light like a blackbody.

Until 1900, the answer was clear: Maxwell's equations was a wonderful gift to humanity as an amazingly compact yet complete description of light and propagation of light, from scientific

point vastly superior to the primitive particle idea of Newton. Educated people would say waves and not particles.

But there was a problem: The phenomenon of blackbody radiation when approached with wave mechanics led to an "ultraviolet catastrophy" with infinite radiated energy in direct contradiction with observation. To save physics from catastrophy something had to be done and it was Max Planck who took on the responsibility, as the successor of the great Kirchhoff at the University of Berlin and a very ambitious member of the newly formed German Physical Society aimed at giving The Kingdom of Prussia a leading role in the scientific world.

After much agony Planck in 1900 gave in and sacrificed rational deterministic wave mechanics, replacing it with irrational statistics of "energy quanta" described by himself as:

• the whole procedure was an act of despair because a theoretical interpretation had to be found at any price, no matter how high that might be...

And so modern physics was born with the catastrophy elegantly handled by a Salomonic:

• light is both waves and particles, sometimes this sometimes that, and you are free to chose whatever suits you the best, also referred to as wave-particle duality.
  

In 1905 the young Einstein used Planck's energy quanta to explain the photoelectric effect,

which added to the success of the revival of Newton's primitive particle theory, requiring wave-particle duality because after all the full particle primitivism of Newton was untenable. But also wave-particle duality is a form of scientific primitivism: Of course you can as a reasonable human being sometimes act like a fool, but duality is here called schizophrenia, and schizophrenic science is crazy science, in our time represented by CO2 climate alarmism ultimately based on radiation as particles.

Both Planck and Einstein struggled to pay the price of introducing particles all through their lives with the logical tragical end:

'

• All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, “What are light quanta?”. Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken. (Einstein shortly before his death 1954)
• I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, and of the rest of physics. (Einstein 1954)
• What wanted to say was just this: In the present circumstances the only profession I would choose would be one where earning a living had nothing to do with the search for knowledge. (Einstein's last letter to Born Jan 17 1955 shortly before his death on the 18th of April, probably referring to Born's statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics).
• Would it not be possible to replace the hypothesis of light quanta by another assumption that would also fit the known phenomena? If it is necessary to modify the elements of the theory, would it not be possible to retain at least the equations for the propagation of radiation and conceive only the elementary processes of emission and absorption differently than they have been until now? (Einstein)
• We shall now derive strange properties of heat radiation described by electromagnetic wave theory. (Planck 1900)
• We shall assume that the radiation in one direction is completely independent of the radiation in a different direction, even opposite. (Planck)
• Either the quantum of action was a fictional quantity,then the whole deduction of the radiation law was essentially an illusion representing only an empty play on formulas of no significance, or the derivation of the radiation law was based on sound physical conception...Mechanically, the task seems impossible, and we will justhave to get used to it (quanta) (Planck 1909).
• Zur radikalsten Affassung neigt J.J Thompson und A. Einstein, welche glauben, das die Fortpflanzung der elektromagnetischen Wellen nicht genau nach den Maxwellshen Feldgleichungen, sondern nach gewissen Energiequanten h nu erfolgt. Ich meine dagegen, dass man einstweilen noch nicht genötig ist, so revolutionär vorzugehen, sondern das mann damit auskommen durfte, die Bedeutung des Energiequantums h nu lediglich in den Wechselwirkungen zu suchen, mit denen die Resonatoren einander beeinflussen. Eine definitive Entscheidigung uber diese prinzipiellen Fragen können aber erst weiter Erfahrungen bringen. (Planck 1908)
• Despite the great success that the atomic theory has so far enyoyed, utimately it will have tobe abandoned in favor of the assumption of continuous matter (wave mechanics) (Planck 1882).
• We therefore regard - and this is the most essential point of the entire calculation - energy to be composed of a very definite number of equal packages (Planck 1900).
• The wave theory of light, which operates with continuous spatial functions, has worked well in the representation of purely optical phenomena and will probably never be replaced by another theory (Einstein).
• I do not seek the meaning of “quantum of action” (light quantum) in the vacuum but at the site of absorption and emission (Planck 1907).
• Despite the apparently complete success of the Einstein equation (for the photoelectric effect), the physical theory on which it was designed to be the symbolic expression, is found so untenable that Einstein himself, I believe, no longer holds to it (Millikan).
• My futile attempts to fit the elementary quantum of action into classical theory continued for a number of years and cost me a great deal of effort. Many of my collegues saw in this something bordering on a tragedy (Planck shortly before his death).
• Einstein is increasingly aloof and sceptical (about the quantum discoveries he pioneered). Many of us regards this as a tragedy (Born).

These confessions viewed as deep insights rather than simply expressions of senility, give a pretty grim outlook on "present circumstances" of modern physics, including climate science...What if Einstein and Planck were right?

In Computational Blackbody Radiation I present a way of turning the tragedy into a happy end

by keeping wave mechanics, according to Planck's and Einstein's innermost dream, only

making it more realistic by including an aspect of finite precision computation, instead of resorting to ad hoc particle statistics, which the scientific souls of Planck and Einstein could never accept.