Ultraviolet catastrophe

Max Planck is considered the father of the quantum theory for his discovery of energy quanta and for creating a full classification of the entire spectrum of thermal radiation.

Planck predicted that the thermal radiation emitted by a black body was emitted in packets or quanta.

Max Planck, was born to an intellectual family in Germany and is considered to be the father of quantum mechanics by many. Quantum mechanics was born in 1900, when Max Planck, put forth a model that was able to explain the full spectrum of thermal radiation. A black body absorbs all of the electromagnetic radiation that falls onto it and emits none. They do not reflect any of the radiation that falls on them. Black body radiation is the emission of light when a black body is heated. The higher the temperature of the black body, the higher the frequency of the emitted radiation. This is Wien's displacement law and it states that as a body becomes heated, it moves from emitting low-frequency red wavelengths to higher frequency blue wavelengths. This is the way astronomers have been able to measure the temperature of deep space. Black body radiation is the way matter absorbs and emits energy as heat and light. This is thermal electromagnetic radiation that is released as a consequence of an object being heated. Thermal radiation, is a kind of electromagnetic radiation, that is released as a consequence of the internal energy of a body. All bodies release electromagnetic radiation over the full frequency range of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, and the nature of the radiation depends on the temperature of the body. If a solid is heated to about 700 degrees Celsius, it will begin to glow visibly. Lower temperatures still emit radiation, however, it is not visible. The wavelengths are too weak to be detected by the human eye. As an object becomes heated, it becomes more red. If you keep heating the object, the wavelength of the emitted electromagnetic radiation will become shorter and the frequency higher. Before Planck, the Rayleigh-Jeans law was sufficient to describe low frequencies of thermal radiation. However, the classical mechanics of the 19th century was not sufficient to describe higher frequencies and shorter wavelengths of thermal radiation. This problem was known as the ultraviolet catastrophe. This name came from the fact that the Rayleigh-Jeans law could only make accurate predictions up until the ultraviolet wavelength portion of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, where it's predictions begins to diverge from empirical observation. The idea by Max Planck was that the radiation itself was set into equilibrium with a set of harmonic oscillators, that realized energy, in a quantized manner or at a characteristic frequency. These were called "quanta" and were discrete packets of energy. The energy was released in a quantized, well-defined and discrete wavelength. The energy came from the oscillations of individual and discrete atoms. Each oscillator’s energy was proportional to its frequency. The energy of a quantum of radiation was proportional to it's frequency. In Planck's formula, the energy of the quanta at a particular frequency would be the frequency of that particular quanta multiplied by a constant. This constant is known (fittingly) as Planck's constant and is denoted by the symbol h and is a fundamental constant in nature. Planck's constant is the proportionality factor between the frequency of a wave and the minimum amount of energy that it can have. The value of Planck's constant is very small and it only becomes visible and is significant for making measurements at the subatomic scale. In the units of kilograms, meters and seconds, the value of the Planck constant is 6.63 x 10^-34. This remarkable theory took several years to be accepted. Max Planck was not even fully convinced of the applicability or validity of the idea himself initially. Planck thought that what he had discovered was more of a mathematical trick than a valid description of the natural world. He had trouble reconciling himself to the full implications of his new quantum theory. Max Planck won the Nobel prize in 1918 for his discovery of energy quanta. This is also considered to be the mark of the birth of the quantum theory.