Planck’s constant, the basis of quantum physics that is easy to explain
It is often said that quantum physics is a discipline that challenges the perception of reality. Well, although this is a somewhat poetic and romantic phrase, it can be partly considered true. Quantum physics is what controls behavior subatomic particles, which are so small that they are not noticeable to our eyes and their study often plunges scientists into research where ordinary laws do not exist. In this context, there is a main character that you have probably heard of, who acts as the main key to understanding this miniature world: Planck’s constant.
Named after the physicist who introduced it. Max Planck, the constant was first named in the early 20th century. In a completely revolutionary work, Planck was not only able to finally explain a large number of problems of the time, but also laid the foundations that would usher in a new era in physics: quantum physics.
Max Planck’s Great Legacy: Quantum Mechanics
THE BIRTH OF AN ERA
Since the beginning of the 20th century, progress in physics seemed to stall. Scientists began to face puzzling dilemmas that they could not explain and for which there were no consistent or effective laws. One of these problems was black body radiationthat is, an object that absorbs all radiation incident on it, but emits a characteristic amount of energy.
In order to solve this phenomenon, Max Planck introduced the innovative idea of energy quantization in 1900: he proposed that energy has been sampled small spaces or pouches, which he called “How many” In other words, he put forward the idea that the energy emitted does not have a constant value, but is released in small quantities, always proportional to a value: Planck’s constant.
Portrait of Max Planck, winner of the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics.
However, acceptance of this idea was by no means immediate. Planck’s proposal she was brave and although it seemed to explain some phenomena, it contradicted many of the theories current at the time. Fortunately, other physicists of the time, such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr or Werner Heisenberg, contributed to other fundamental discoveries that eventually led to consolidate Planck’s theory. In general, wave-particle dualism, the uncertainty principle and quantum mechanics were the pillars that contributed to the development of this new concept of the microscopic world.
What is a CONSTANT PLANK?
Thus, Planck’s constant, denoted h, has established itself as one of the fundamental pillars of quantum physics, playing a fundamental role in quantization of phenomena that occur in nature. Up to this point, it was believed that the release of energy could have any value, but with the help of Planck’s postulate it was determined that it must always be quantized in quantities that integers that are multiples of a constant, X. To be precise, its value is 6.626×10.-3.4 joules per second according to the International System of Units.
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Likewise, Planck’s constant also played an important role in the formulation of another great approach to quantum physics: uncertainty principle according to Heisenberg. The idea of this approach establishes that it is impossible to know with absolute accuracy the position and magnitude of the particle’s momentum. In this case, Planck’s constant acts as an obstacle, as if it were limitation in the ability to accurately measure certain quantities.
A formula that relates the energy with which a particle is emitted to the frequency of its motion through Planck’s constant.
KEY PART
Its presence, derived theoretically, can be explained and demonstrated through quantum phenomena observed in various experiments, which finally cemented its significance. For example, based on Planck’s evidence, Albert Einstein proposed in 1905 quantum explanation of the photoelectric effectbetting that light shining on metal knocks out electrons.
To justify this idea, Einstein proposed that light consists of particles called photons, each of which has an energy proportional to Planck’s constant. It was this phenomenon that made it possible to explain that light exhibits both wave and corpuscular behavior, laying the foundations for the theory wave-particle duality.
Similarly, in 1927, Clinton Davisson and Lester Germer conducted various experiments on electron diffraction, demonstrating that they exhibited wave behavior very similar to light waves. This phenomenon is called electron diffractionconfirmed this wave-particle duality and emphasized the need to consider Planck’s constant as an indispensable element in the study of the microscopic world.
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Also in 1981 he played a very important role in the invention tunnel microscope. This is a phenomenon in which particles are able to cross classically forbidden energy barriers, which is directly related to the energy they possess, quantified as a multiple of Planck’s constant.