Part of the Casswiki article series Natural science
There exists in nature a certain lower limit of interaction which can never be reduced. This natural limit is negligibly small for any interactions occurring within our everyday life but this is highly significant for events at the atomic scale.
In the year 1900, the German physicist Max Planck came to the conclusion that no equilibrium was possible with energy transfers between matter and radiation when such transfers took place continuously (as had always been supposed by physicists at that time). Planck proposed that the energy was transferred between matter and radiation in a sequence of separate ‘shocks.’ A particular amount of energy was transferred in each of these elementary acts of interaction. In order to get the desired equilibrium, and to achieve agreement with existing facts, it was necessary to introduce a simple mathematical relation which stated that the amount of energy transferred in each shock (or ‘packet’) was proportional to the frequency of the radiation responsible for the transfer of energy.
This coefficient of proportionality for this energy transfer was denoted by the symbol ‘h’ and this was defined as the minimum portion, or QUANTUM, of energy that is transferred between matter and radiation (energy) and this relationship is given by the equation:
E=hf
where f stands for frequency of the radiation and h stands for the constant of proportionality relating the energy of the radiation to its frequency. This ‘h’ has the numerical value of approximately 6.626 x (10 to the -34 power) joule-seconds.
To put the numerical value in more familiar notation we have the value of Plancks constant as:
6.6 x (1 divided by 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)
A small quantity indeed.
A further development by Einstein on this idea led Einstein to conclude that not only is radiation emitted in PACKETS of energy but these packets transfer energy to matter in the same localized ways as particles do. In other words, each packet remains intact, is self contained, and does not disperse its energy over a wide region, as was previously assumed. These packets of energy are referred to as “quanta of light”, or photons.
Thus Planck showed that on the atomic scale there is discontinuity and that nature does, in fact, operate in JUMPS.
We can look at Plancks constant as being a QUANTUM OF ACTION that is one of the 3 basic properties of existence, the others being inertial mass and electric charge. This fundamental ‘action’ goes to the very root of existence and might be regarded as the basic property or ‘action’ that separates existence from its primitive undifferentiated ground state. This fundamental quantum of action may then allow for the formation of “quanta of INTERACTION” (electromagnetic radiation, electrons, positrons, and neutrinos) that pass over this undifferentiated threshold, and these ‘quanta of interaction’ form the very first layer or ‘density’ of existence.