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Do any of us really understand the true nature of light?
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I understand the true nature of light, Michael. Light is not energy, it can only be quantized as the energy required to produce it. The phenomenon of light occurs when an atom is agitated, or "excited", and the conformity of its shape at equilibrium becomes momentarily distorted. "Photons" are
not particles per se, and only exist for the briefest of moments. The effect of the atom's distortion is passed on to adjacent atoms by like polar repulsion and the photonic effect is subsequently reproduced by those atoms and so on in a chain event of reactions occurring throughout the medium. This continues until the source of excitation of the atoms is removed whereupon light ceases to be produced because the atoms in the medium are once more stabalised to their state at equilibrium. Light does not travel on its own, and what we commonly call the "speed of light" actually refers to the rate of atomic interaction, which is a constant for any medium.
Light cannot be made liquid or solid because it has no mass to begin with and therefore I theorize that it is actually nothing. The fact that it is "bright" is only a matter related to relative contextual appreciation.
You can read more about light
here.