In 1900, Max Planck was working on the problem of how the radiation an object emits is related to its temperature. He came up with a formula that agreed very closely with experimental data, but the formula only made sense if he assumed that the energy of a vibrating molecule was quantized--that is, it could only take on certain values. The energy would have to be proportional to the frequency of vibration, and it seemed to come in little "chunks" of the frequency multiplied by a certain constant. This constant came to be known as Planck's constant, or h, and it has the value: Isn't he hot?!  Oh yeah baby!!

Links to Max Planck: http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1918/planck-bio.html      Nobel Museum Biography http://wwwchem.csustan.edu/chem3070/Raul1.htm      Biography http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Planck.html      Wolfram Research Biography

Jessica Gee, Jessica Wong...last updated 2 June 2003