Planck's hypothesis: the beginning of the quantum world

This article describes what Planck's hypothesis is , who is its creator and how important it has become for the development of modern science. The value of the idea of quantization for the entire microworld is also shown.

Smartphone and Quantum Physics

The modern world around us is very different in technology from everything that was familiar a hundred years ago. All this became possible only because at the dawn of the twentieth century, scientists overcame the barrier and realized, finally: the substance on the smallest scale is not continuous. And opened this era with his assumption of a wonderful man - Max Planck.

Biography of Planck

His name is: one of the physical constants, the quantum equation, the scientific community in Germany, an asteroid, a crater on the moon, a space telescope. His image was stamped on coins and printed on stamps and bills. What kind of person was Max Planck? He was born in the middle of the nineteenth century in a German noble family. Among his ancestors were many good lawyers and church ministers. Education M. Plank received a good one, but fellow physicists jokingly called him "self-taught." The scientist received basic knowledge from books.

The hypothesis of Planck was born from the assumption, which he derived theoretically. In his scientific career, he adhered to the principle that "science is most important". In the First World War, Planck tried to keep in touch with foreign counterparts from the countries-opponents of Germany. The arrival of the Nazis found him as the director of a large scientific community - and the scientist sought to protect his employees, helped to go abroad to those who fled the regime. So Planck's hypothesis was not the only one, for which he was respected. However, he never openly spoke out against Hitler, obviously realizing that he would not only harm himself, but he would not be able to help those who needed it. Unfortunately, many physicists did not accept this position of M. Planck and stopped the correspondence with him. He had five children, and only the youngest survived his father. The eldest son was taken by the First, Middle - Second World War. Both daughters did not survive childbirth. At the same time, contemporaries noted that only at home Plank was himself.

Sources of quanta

From school the scientist was interested in the second law of thermodynamics. It says: any process goes only with increasing chaos and loss of energy or mass. He was the first who formulated it that way - in terms of entropy, which can only grow in a thermodynamic system. Later, it was this work that led to the formulation of Planck's famous hypothesis. He was also one of those who introduced the tradition of separating mathematics and physics, practically creating a theoretical section of the latter. Prior to him, all natural sciences were mixed, and experiments were conducted by singles in laboratories, which almost did not differ from alchemical ones.

The hypothesis of quanta

Investigating the entropy of electromagnetic waves within the terms of oscillators and drawing on the experimental data obtained two days before, on October 19, 1900 Planck presented to other scientists a formula that would later be called his name. It connected the energy, wavelength and radiation temperature (in the extreme case for an absolutely black body). The following night, his colleagues, led by Rubens, experimented to confirm this theory. And she was right! However, in order to theoretically justify the hypothesis arising from this formula and, at the same time, to avoid mathematical complications of the type of infinities, Planck had to admit that the energy is radiated not by a continuous stream, as previously thought, but in separate portions (E = hν). This approach destroyed all existing ideas about the solid. The quantum hypothesis of Planck revolutionized physics.

Consequences of Quantization

At first, the scientist was not aware of the importance of the discovery he had made. For a time, the formula he derived was used only as a convenient way to reduce the number of mathematical operations for calculation. In this case, both Planck and other scientists used the continuous Maxwell equations. Confused only by the constant h, which did not manage to give a physical meaning. Later, only Albert Einstein and Paul Ehrenfest, understanding new phenomena of radioactivity and trying to find a mathematical basis for optical spectra, understood the importance of what Planck's hypothesis is. It is said that the report, which first sounded the formula for quantizing energy, opened the era of new physics. Probably, Einstein was the first who realized its beginning. So this is his credit, too.

What is quantized

All states that can take any elementary particles are discrete. The electron in the trap can only be at certain levels. The excitation of an atom, like the opposite process-emission, also takes place in jumps. Any electromagnetic interaction is the exchange of quanta of the corresponding energy. The energy of the atom was curbed only by understanding the discreteness of the energy levels. We hope that now the readers will not have a question about what Planck's hypothesis is, and what is its impact on the modern world, and therefore, on each of the people.