# Photoelectric experiment explaining particle property of light [duplicate]

How does photoelectric experiment prove the particle aspect of light in opposed to be solely wave-like?

• Does this answer your question? Can the photoelectric effect be explained without photons? – A. P. Jan 17 at 20:35
• The particle aspect of a light with photons is fairly self-explanatory. What’s hard to explain is a light wave. Billions of coherent photons radiating from a common source resemble a wave but they are still individual particles. – Bill Alsept Jan 17 at 21:10
• @BillAlsept This must be some joke. – my2cts Jan 17 at 23:47
• @my2cts you can physically describe and explain light with particles. You cannot even begin to describe a light wave without incorporating billions of individual photons. – Bill Alsept Jan 18 at 0:01

There was a zinc plate that when irradiated with ultraviolet light emitted electrons (charged particles) to a detector which could detect them. It was observed that there was a minimum energy to the light before the photoelectric effect could be observed. It was postulated that photons come in wavepackets. Planck relation gives: $$E = h \nu$$