How Max Planck Changed Our Understanding Of The Universe

Albert Einstein carried Planck's discovery one step further when he applied it the "photoelectric effect." When light is shone on a metal surface, electrons can be ejected from that surface. This is called the photoelectric effect. Without going into detail, if light is a wave, as Young showed, then certain features of the photoelectric effect seemed impossible. What Einstein showed is that if one assumes that light is made up of particles, and if these particles have the properties described by Planck for his small bursts of light, then the photoelectric effect makes

He made important contributions to the theory of cosmic ray showers, and did work that eventually led toward descriptions of quantum tunneling.

Edwin Hubble was an American astronomer who revolutionized cosmology and was regarded as one of the most significant observers in the field. While working at Mount Wilson, Hubble discovered that there were more existing galaxies besides the Milky Way Galaxy. Hubble took many photos through the observatory's telescope, and it allowed him to calculate the distance of other galaxies by comparing the varying degrees of luminosity in the stars themselves. Although there was no evidence suggesting the size of the other galaxies that Hubble discovered, he was ultimately able to compute that the Andromeda Nebula was about one million light years away from us. Later in his career Hubble began to explore the way galaxies shifted in space relative to

The universe we know today is big and dark, with billions of galaxies. In the beginning of the universe it was thought to be much different. It was small, dense, and hot. In the book The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, Weinberg explains the early stages of the Universe with what happened during the time of the Big Bang. He explains the first three minutes of the very early universe and then the early universe. At the beginning there was zero time where the whole Universe was compressed into a one. From there during the “one-hundredth of a second…the temperature of the universe was about a hundred thousand million degrees Centigrade”(Page8). The Universe was made up of photons, electrons, positrons, quarks and

Niels Bohr was another large piece of the Solvay Conference in 1927. He and Einstein were the stars of the show, as they both battled to prove their theories. Niels Bohr’s theory was about “Quantum Mechanics”. Even today we still use this theory. The teachers teach this to the students, and it is the best theory that we know about. The theory is that we use different orbitals where the electrons will travel around the atom. The different orbitals mean the different energy

After graduation from the Gymnasium in 1906, Schrödinger embarked on his career in physics. His most prominent innovation was the wave equation; a formula that states the speed of a wave, its wavelength, and frequency (v=f x y) (“Haselhurst”). With the wave equation postulated, a confined particle, with known momentum and energy functions, could be depicted with a specific wave function (“Haselhurst”). This equation not only proved that only specific wave frequencies could exist, which coincides to certain energy states, but it showed that electrons follow a complicated orbital, with varying degrees of possibility. Schrödinger also conducted eminent research on Quantum Mechanics with his memorable “Schrödinger’s Cat” experimentation (“Haselhurst”). This prominent research involved placing a cat in a box with a vile of poison, which were disintegrating alpha particles that would burst at any

Over many centuries, there has been a great deal of controversy over the ultimate fate of the universe. It began in the early 1900’s with Albert Einstein’s theory that General relativity could be used to inform us about the universe which would also inform us on how the universe would end. Russian Physicist, Alexander Friedman, was the first to believe that universe was expanding from initial singularity which is also known as the Big Bang. After Edwin Hubble stated his observation on the universe’s expansion in 1931, the end of the universe has been a subject that many scientist have investigated.

A popular television show called The Big Bang Theory airs every Thursday night on the CBS television network and is also in syndication. The show 's introduction compresses the history of the world and scientific advances into a nineteen second video. Listen closely to the beginning and hear according to Robertson (2007), the “whole universe was in a hot dense state and 14 billion years ago the expansion started.” The song and images seem to flash at light speed. One of my sons asked, “What did the TV show mean by the big bang theory?” This one television show, while not explaining the theory, launched the phrase, “big bang theory” into our generation 's collective conscious.

Did you know that “it has been 50 years since two scientists found landmark evidence for the Big Bang theory?”(Kramer,2014) The Bang Theory aka BBT is the most popular explanation about the start of our universe that is widely accepted/acknowledged. The theory is that “the entire Universe is spreading apart, with distant galaxies speeding away from us in all directions. Run the clock backwards to 13.8 billion years ago, and everything in the Cosmos started out as a single point in space. In an instant, everything expanded outward from that location, forming the energy, atoms and eventually the stars and galaxies we see today.” (Cain, 2013) The Big Bang Theory is possibly right because of the evidence/research backed up by it such as exploration done by Edwin Hubble, data found by both Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, and background radiation that had been found that is believed to be created by the Big Bang.

The study of quantum mechanics has been ongoing for hundreds of years. The book, Entanglement by Amir D. Aczel allows the reader to see the evolution of the study of quantum mechanics over those hundreds of years from a fresh perspective. He offers an inside look at the scientists who have contributed so much to the field throughout the years. In his book, Aczel humanizes the people who we previously looked at just as names behind different theories, equations, and methods by exploring their backgrounds and their own unique motivations to study quantum mechanics. He shows how their work over the years built unto that of their predecessors. The scientists come from different generations and places, but Aczel shows that they all share something in common. While only some of them were aware of it at the time, all of their work would contribute to the discovery and understanding of one of the most complex issue of quantum mechanics, entanglement. However, even understanding entanglement was not enough to answer the question we still ask even today, why the quantum?

The theory of the universe 's origin centers on a cosmic catastrophe known as the big bang. The big bang theory proponents imply that 10 billion to 20 billion years ago, a massive blast from an ancient and unknown type of energy allowed all the universe 's known matter and energy, including space and time. The big bang theory was first suggested in the 1920 's by a Belgian priest named Georges Lemaître. He theorized that the universe began from a single primordial atom. The idea received major reinforcements by Edwin Hubble 's observations that other galaxies are moving away from our own at great speed, in all directions, as if they had all been propelled by an ancient explosive force, (National Geographic, n.d.).

1) How did Albert Einstein's "new physics" change perceptions of the way the universe worked?

He proposed that under certain circumstances light could be considered a particles. He also hypothesized that the energy carried by a photon is depositional to the frequency of radiation. The formula E= HU proves this. Virtually no one accepted this theory but thought differently when Robert Andrews Millikan proved it.

In the year 1913, a Danish physicist named Niels Bohr instituted an advanced model of the atom. His proposal stated that the arrangement of electrons is like concentric circular orbits surrounding the nucleus. Therefore, according to Bohr, an atom can be thought of as a “microscopic solar system.” His theory is similarly patterned to the solar system, where the planets surround the sun. However, his philosophy posed a concern.

Through out history, several changes have taken place in physics with the governing equations and fundamental principles being developed by several scientists in a view of understanding the way our universe works or even created. The evolution of physics from relying on the Newtonian Model, to gravity and currently to string theory means that discoveries in particle physics are still ongoing in an effort to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics.