Quantum

The word "quantum" comes from the Latin "quantus", meaning "how little". "Quanta", short for "quanta of electricity" (electrons) was used in a 1902 article on the photoelectric effect by Philipp Lenard, who credited Hermann von Helmholtz for using the word in the area of electricity. However, the word quantum in general was well known before 1900.^[2] It was often used by physicians, such as in the term quantum satis. Both Helmholtz and Julius von Mayer were physicians as well as physicists. Helmholtz used "quantum" with reference to heat in his article^[3] on Mayer's work, and indeed, the word "quantum" can be found in the formulation of the first law of thermodynamics by Mayer in his letter^[4] dated July 24, 1841. Max Planck used "quanta" to mean "quanta of matter and electricity",^[5] gas, and heat.^[6] In 1905, in response to Planck's work and the experimental work of Lenard (who explained his results by using the term "quanta of electricity"), Albert Einstein suggested that radiation existed in spatially localized packets which he called "quanta of light" ("Lichtquanta").^[7]
The concept of quantization of radiation was discovered in 1900 by Max Planck, who had been trying to understand the emission of radiation from heated objects, known as black-body radiation. By assuming that energy can only be absorbed or released in tiny, differential, discrete packets he called "bundles" or "energy elements",^[8] Planck accounted for the fact that certain objects change colour when heated.^[9] On December 14, 1900, Planck reported his revolutionary findings to the German Physical Society, and introduced the idea of quantization for the first time as a part of his research on black-body radiation.^[10] As a result of his experiments, Planck deduced the numerical value of h, known as the Planck constant, and could also report a more precise value for the Avogadro–Loschmidt number, the number of real molecules in a mole and the unit of electrical charge, to the German Physical Society. After his theory was validated, Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 for his discovery.

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