Max Planck
A conundrum involving ultraviolet radiation led German physicist
Max Planck to try a mathematical trick that ultimately pointed to the
existence of what Planck decided to call quantum mechanics. Planck's
dilemma was that if you heat up a box from which no light can escape, it
should produce an infinite amount of ultraviolet radiation. But that
doesn't happen. This situation is known as the ultraviolet catastrophe.
To explain this phenomenon, Planck tried an equation that assumed light
was not a wave -- which everyone at the time assumed it was -- but
instead existed only with set amounts or "quanta" of energy. To his
surprise, the equations worked [source:
PBS].
max planck is a true genius
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