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The passage reads: It seems to me that the observations associated with blackbody radia- tion, fluorescence, the production of cathode rays by ultraviolet light, and other related phenomena connected with the emission or transformation of light are more readily understood if one assumes that the energy of light is discontinuously distributed in space. In accordance with the assumption to be considered here, the energy of a light ray spreading out from a point source is not continuously distributed over an increasing space but consists of a finite number of energy quanta which are localized at points in space, which move without dividing, and which can only be produced and absorbed as complete units.

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The passage reads: It seems to me that the observations associated with blackbody radia- tion, fluorescence, the production of cathode rays by ultraviolet light, and other related phenomena connected with the emission or transformation of light are more readily understood if one assumes that the energy of light is discontinuously distributed in space. In accordance with the assumption to be considered here, the energy of a light ray spreading out from a point source is not continuously distributed over an increasing space but consists of a finite number of energy quanta which are localized at points in space, which move without dividing, and which can only be produced and absorbed as complete units.
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Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Dec-2022 15:31:24 UTC Robert McNees
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But it was a trick that *worked*. Previous efforts to derive the blackbody emission spectrum using classical physics gave nonsensical results at high frequencies. Replace continuous emission with discrete quanta and things work out perfectly.
Evidence for the reality of quanta began with Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905. The proposal that radiation of frequency f exists only in discrete chunks of energy E=hf was the first result of Einstein’s “Miracle Year.”

In conversation Wednesday, 14-Dec-2022 15:31:24 UTC from mastodon.social permalink