jan 1, 1918 - Max Planck

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Max Planck discovered that hot objects do not radiate a smooth, continuous range of energies as had been assumed in classical physics. Instead, he found that the energies radiated by hot objects have distinct values, with all other values forbidden. Planck found that the energy carried by electromagnetic radiation must be divisible by a number called Planck’s constant, represented by the letter h. Energy could then be calculated from the equation: E = hν where E is energy, h is Planck’s constant, and ν is the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation. Planck’s constant is a very, very small quantity indeed. Its small size explains why the experimentalists of the time had not realized that electromagnetic energy is quantized. To four significant figures, Planck’s constant is 6.626 x 10^34 J s

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