Abstract
It all started with three problems:
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1.
In 1900 Max Planck found himself unable to explain that so-called black bodies emit energy not in arbitrary quantities, but rather in “energy packets” of a certain size.
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2.
In 1905 Albert Einstein was forced to conclude that light is both wave and particle.
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3.
In 1912 Ernest Rutherford discovered in a startling experiment that the atom consists of a nucleus of protons with electrons orbiting around it; however, according to the laws of classical physics this should not be possible.
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Notes
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Here, however, there had already existed important philosophical movements of thought that questioned the independence of things from our perception of them, such as the Kantian philosophy, which doubts that we can have knowledge of “things in themselves.”
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This statement is most likely not true on a cosmic scale. Here the general theory of relativity applies, and this theory has so far proved to be incompatible with any quantum theory (see Chap. 14).
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There are two types of X-ray radiation: Bremsstrahlung and characteristic radiation. For the explanation and application of the former, classical physics is sufficient. It was discovered by Konrad Röntgen, who received the very first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. The second requires quantum physics and was discovered by Charles Glover Barkla, who received the 1917 Nobel Prize in Physics.
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Jaeger, L. (2018). Mighty Power: How a Theory of the Microcosm Changed Our World. In: The Second Quantum Revolution. Copernicus, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98824-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98824-5_1
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