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The discovery of quantum mechanics at the start of the 20th century shook the very foundations of physics, forcing scientists and philosophers to reexamine everything from particles upward. But as this short animation from MinutePhysics explains, the quantum revolution was jumpstarted by a rather unremarkable question. As the German government asked the theoretical physicist Max Planck: how can lightbulbs be made more efficient? To help solve the problem, Planck tried to account for the changing colour of light based on temperature, which he eventually realised couldn’t be explained by classical Newtonian physics. Working backwards from his data in ‘an act of despair’, Planck found that light wasn’t emitted continuously, but rather in discrete packets that he referred to as ‘quanta’. And the rest is the illusory arrow of time that we call history.
Video by MinutePhysics
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History of science
Ideas ‘of pure genius’ – how astronomers have measured the Universe across history
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Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
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Making
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Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
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Computing and artificial intelligence
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Earth science and climate
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Biology
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Engineering
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Cognition and intelligence
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