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100th Anniversary of Quantum Physics
EricR writes "On December 14, 1900, Max Planck presented experimental results in front of the German Physical Society and announced that they could best be explained if energy exists in discrete packets, which he called "quanta." Today is the 100th birthday of Quantum Physics."
Gotta love quantum physics...
Check out the University of Chicago's Physics Department for all the information you could want to know about modern research in quantum physics.
Oh, and December 2, 2002 was the 60th Anniversy of the first self-sustaining controlled release of nuclear energy
Since I goofed on the last post, I'll add the obligatory links to:
CERN
The Enrico Fermi Institute
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratories
Agronne National Laboratories
Los Alamos National Laboratories
Yep, all the information you could want on modern Quantum Physics.
The wavelength distribution of blackbody radiation had been determined some (many?) years earlier. However, no one could figure out how to to explain how it could come about.
Somehow, Planck worked out an equation which yielded that wavelength distribution quite precisely. I believe that it is correct that his model was a "what if" conjecture about energy exisiting in discrete packets.
As discussed, the rest is history.
53 years of passing time has dimmed my memory, but I'm pretty sure that is the story.
I think his main problem was the idea of Universal instantaneous collapse of the wavefunction (which leads to "spooky action at a distance"[2] and God playing "dice with the Universe"). These concepts came from the Copenhagen Interpretation, and was the best way the Quantum theoreticians could think to explain the seemingly counterintuitive results of QM - it's pure philosophy and has nothing to do with the Physics.
Of course not everyone necessarily subscribes Copenhagen now. My personal favourite explanation is the proposition popular in the 80s and in Sliders - that multiple Universes are created at each instant multiple outcomes are possible, each reflecting the different outcomes.
Quantum mechanics as we currently know it includes Bose-Einstein statistics describing the behaviour of systems of integer-spin particles (which leads to the concept of a Bose-Einstein condensate - a highly active area of research today); Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (described at the atomic scale by the Einstein coefficients); quantisation of electromagnetic radiation (proposed by Einstein); Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect (for which he received the Nobel prize). Stretching the boundaries a little, there are equations for the equilibrium number of charge carriers in Solid State physics which rely on the quantisation of charge in the material. These are known as the Einstein equations.
Even the greatest can be mistaken.Such as when he removed lambda from his equation on the state of the Universe (his "biggest blunder", indeed :-)).
[1]Point of order: even Schroedinger didn't believe in Schroedinger's Cat. He set it up as a thought experiment to show how absurd QM is (I mean, who could really believe in a dead/alive cat? Not him). The experiment has of course, since been done, sans cat.
[2]He believed that the "instantaneous" collapse of the wavefunction would lead to information being propagated instantaneously throughout the Universe. Of course, the wavefunction is not a measurable quantity so this does not occur.