John Kennaugh wrote:
Again my personal view is that light cannot be both waves and particles
and that the most promising approach is to accept that light is made up
of photons and try and come up with a model of a photon which would
explain the very convincing wavelike behaviour of light.

That has already been done! It is known as quantum electrodynamics, and
is the most accurately tested theory known (something like 12
significant digits).

In QED, photons are quantum excitations of a field, and their
probability density is what gives them wavelike behavior in some
regimes, and the fact that they are discrete excitations gives them
particle-like behavior in other regimes.


I agree that the wave theory is very convincing up to a point but having
reached that point I feel one has to accept that light IS made up of
particles although it BEHAVES like a system of waves.

Yes. This is all explained in a non-mathematical way in:

Feynman, _QED_.


What causes an electron to always have the same mass. Something
fundamental to nature.

A modern answer does not include "cause", but observes that this
property of electrons is a direct consequence of their all being quantum
excitations of the same field.


Tom Roberts