Planck's revolutionary discovery, one of the most influential in all of science, was that a resonator could emit energy in discrete units, or quanta. The energy emitted by a resonator of frequency '''''ν''''' is '''''hν''''', where "'''''h'''''" is a universal constant that is now called Planck's constant. This explanation resolved important discrepancies between theory and observations, and helped lay a foundation for the development of [[quantum mechanics]]. | Planck's revolutionary discovery, one of the most influential in all of science, was that a resonator could emit energy in discrete units, or quanta. The energy emitted by a resonator of frequency '''''ν''''' is '''''hν''''', where "'''''h'''''" is a universal constant that is now called Planck's constant. This explanation resolved important discrepancies between theory and observations, and helped lay a foundation for the development of [[quantum mechanics]]. |