This article explains what Planck's hypothesis is, who created it, and how important it has become for the development of modern science. The significance 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 finally understood that matter on the smallest scale is not continuous. And this era was opened with his assumption by a wonderful person - Max Planck.
Planck's biography
One of the physical constants, a quantum equation, a scientific community in Germany, an asteroid, a crater on the Moon, a space telescope are named after him. His image was embossed on coins and printed on stamps and banknotes. What kind of person was Max Planck? He was born in the middle of the nineteenth century in a German noble family of modest means. Among his ancestors were many good lawyers and ministers of the church. M. Planck received a good education, but fellow physicists jokingly called him "self-taught". The scientist gained his basic knowledge frombooks.
Planck's hypothesis was born from an assumption that he made theoretically. In his scientific career, he adhered to the principle of "science comes first". During the First World War, Planck tried to maintain ties with foreign colleagues from the countries that opposed Germany. The arrival of the Nazis found him in the position of director of a large scientific community - and the scientist sought to protect his employees, helped those who fled from the regime to go abroad. So Planck's hypothesis was not the only thing for which he was respected. However, he never openly spoke out against Hitler, apparently realizing that not only would he 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 corresponding with him. He had five children, and only the youngest survived his father. The eldest son was taken by the First, the middle - by the Second World War. Both daughters did not survive childbirth. At the same time, contemporaries noted that only at home Planck was himself.
Sources of quanta
From school, the scientist was interested in the second law of thermodynamics. It says: any process goes only with an increase in chaos and a loss of energy or mass. He was the first to formulate it this way, in terms of entropy, which can only increase in a thermodynamic system. Later, it was this work that led to the formulation of Planck's famous conjecture. He was also one of those who introduced the tradition of separating mathematics and physics, practically creating a theoretical section of the latter. Before himall natural sciences were mixed, and experiments were carried out by individuals in laboratories that were almost no different from alchemical ones.
Quant hypothesis
Exploring the entropy of electromagnetic waves in terms of oscillators and relying on experimental data obtained two days before, on October 19, 1900, Planck presented to other scientists a formula that would later be named after him. It linked energy, wavelength and radiation temperature (in the limiting case for a completely black body). Throughout the next night, his colleagues, under the direction of Rubens, set up experiments to confirm this theory. And she was right! However, in order to theoretically substantiate the hypothesis arising from this formula and at the same time avoid mathematical difficulties such as infinities, Planck had to admit that energy is not emitted in a continuous stream, as was previously thought, but in separate portions (E=hν). This approach destroyed all existing ideas about a solid body. Planck's quantum hypothesis revolutionized physics.
Consequences of quantization
At first, the scientist did not realize the importance of his discovery. For a while, the formula he derived was used only as a convenient way to reduce the number of mathematical operations for calculation. At the same time, both Planck and other scientists used Maxwell's continuous equations. The only embarrassing thing was the constant h, which could not be given a physical meaning. Later onlyAlbert Einstein and Paul Ehrenfest, understanding new phenomena of radioactivity and trying to find a mathematical justification for optical spectra, realized the importance of what Planck's hypothesis was. They say that the report, at which the energy quantization formula was first presented, opened the era of new physics. Einstein was probably the first to recognize its beginning. So this is his merit too.
What is quantized
All states that any elementary particles can take are discrete. An electron in a trap can only be at certain levels. The excitation of an atom, as well as the opposite process - emission, also occurs in jumps. Any electromagnetic interaction is an exchange of quanta of the corresponding energy. Humanity curbed the energy of the atom only thanks to the understanding of the discreteness of energy levels. We hope that now readers will not have a question, what is Planck's hypothesis, and what is its impact on the modern world, and therefore on each of the people.
