🚀 go-pugleaf

Coupla things.

First off, classical E&M + plus quantized energy levels ALONE will
not explain the photo-electric effect, or Planck's black-body formula.
You need SOME additional hypotheses about the coupling between matter
and the EM field.  For example, if energy is conserved, then how are
we to reconcile the abrupt change in the atom's energy level (during an
absorption or emission event) with Maxwell's equations?  Or is energy
only conserved statistically (as Bohr briefly suggested)?

You should really take a look at Planck's "second theory", as
summarized in the book by Kuhn I cited earlier in this thread.  Planck
mulled over these issues for years; he uncovered pitfalls that are not
altogether obvious.  (I don't remember the details, but he found out that
emission and absorption cannot be treated symmetrically in a semi-classical
hybrid with a classical EM field.)

Next: what do *you*, Martin Green, think about photons?  This thread
started on a pedagogical note: what should a high-school teacher tell
his or her students about photons?  Well, what should a high-school
teacher say about *any* page from the current scientific rulebook---
say, gravity, or evolution, or the germ theory of disease?  I'd plump
for "the truth, but not the whole truth": i.e., this is what (nearly
all) scientists believe; here are a *few* of the reasons why; here's a
bit of the history.

But if you believe that the conventional wisdom on photons is *wrong*,
you might not be satisfied with the generic answer in this case.