The birth of quantum theory
German physicist Max Planck publishes his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a blackbody substance and the quantum theory of modern physics is born.Through physical experiments Planck demonstrated that energy in certain situations can exhibit characteristics of physical matter.According to theories of classical physics energy is solely a continuous wave-like phenomenon independent of the characteristics of physical matter.Plancks theory held that radiant energy is made up of particle-like components known as quantum.
The theory helped to resolve previously unexplained natural phenomena such as the behavior of heat in solids and the nature of light absorption on an atomic level.In 1918 Planck was rewarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on blackbody radiation.Other scientists such as Albert Einstein Niels Bohr Louis de Broglie Erwin Schrodinger and Paul M.Dirac advanced Plancks theory and made possible the development of quantum mechanicsa mathematical application of the quantum theory that maintains that energy is both matter and a wave depending on certain variables.
Quantum mechanics thus takes a probabilistic view of nature sharply contrasting with classical mechanics in which all precise properties of objects are in principle calculable.Today the combination of quantum mechanics with Einsteins theory of relativity is the basis of modern physics.
