![]() ![]() He concluded that waves with long wavelengths, like red light, transport small amounts of energy, whereas those with short wavelengths, like violet light, transport more energy. Einstein not only supported Planck’s idea, he went one step further: he proposed that light behaved as a particle (a photon) but also retained its wave character and must therefore be considered as both a particle and a wave.įurthermore, Einstein established that the energy of a photon is related to the wavelength of the radiation. The debate finally came to a head – and to a resolution – when the German physicist Albert Einstein entered the scene in 1905. This proposal ran contrary to all contemporary knowledge about light at that time. In his theory, Planck maintained that light could only be emitted as small packets of energy that he named “quanta” (later known as “photons”). Planck noted that it was impossible to solve the problem using existing principles of physics and proceeded to develop a revolutionary theory that marked nothing less than the beginning of modern physics. It was only in 1900 that the German physicist Max Planck would provide part of the answer. Many researchers attempted to explain how matter could generate an emission spectrum but without success. ![]() ![]() In 1859, the German physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff called this type of spectrum an “emission spectrum”. #Line spectra how toDespite this lack of understanding, they nonetheless knew how to separate the light emitted by a gas into a spectrum that was diagnostic of the chemical elements contained in the gas. By the end of the 1800’s, scientists were observing this phenomenon in their laboratories but could not explain it. ![]()
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