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1870s a young boy went to his physics professor and said hey I want to be a
physicist and the professor replied physics is almost complete don't waste your
time fortunately that boy decided to waste his time and get a PhD because pretty
soon we realized that physics was broken you see classical physics predicted that
everything in this universe including you me and donkeys and that cup of coffee
should radiate infinite energy at any temperature it

give out Infinite Energy in all mostly in high frequency ultraviolet and
x-rays this later became known as the ultraviolet catastrophe it was a catastrophic
result clearly it is wrong coffees do not give you Infinite Energy in high
frequency X-rays and um ultraviolet rays instead they give out finite amount of
energy mostly in infrared radiation and that's because the actual graph looks like
this today we call this the black body radiation curve and you can see it Peak and
then it goes back down at low temperature

that Peak is mostly in the infrared region of course at high temperature

that Peak can go back to the visible region and therefore at high temperatures
things can glow like your encantas and bulb and stuff but the big question was how
do we fix this how do we go from what the classical disastrous result that physics
was giving us to the actual result what needs to be modified to give us this answer
nobody had any clue nobody was able to solve this puzzle nobody except for the man
who wasted his time pursuing a Physics

degree because he realized using trial and error and in later what he
called an act of Despair that the only way to solve this is to assume that energy
is quantized yes this man is MOX plunk who accidentally saved physics and then
regretted it we have all heard of the story multiple times how Max flong quantized
Energy and saved the day and solved this whole catastrophe but the big question for
me was how I'm not talking about the math part of it but what is the logic behind
it how does quantizing energy solve this well that's

what I've been trying to understand for the last few weeks and I think I
finally have the intuition for it and I'm super excited to share that with you so
the goal of this video is not just to understand this but for us to put ourselves
in MX plunk shoes pretend we don't know anything about e equal to hu and then
ReDiscover it from scratch so if you're ready for this let's begin in so plon where
do we start plon says mahes the first big question we need to ask ourselves is what
really caused the

ultraviolet catastrophe I mean there are a ton of details but at the very
core what are some main reasons for it turns out there are three the first one is
you can simulate a black body a perfect black body as a hole in a metallic Cube
because a hole is pretty much a perfect absorb so it can also perfectly emit
radiation and now if you heat up that metallic Cube then its thermal energy will be
stored in electromagnetic standing waves each of these standing wave represents a
degree of Freedom an

independent way of storing energy but the thing about the standing waves
is that you can set up any amount of standing waves of shorter and shorter
wavelength there is absolutely no limit to it which means you can have infinite
degrees of freedom the second part is that the second point is that not only do we
have infinite degrees of freedom but the degrees of freedom actually increases with
frequency and again this is the reason the reason for this is because we live in
three dimensions see in one dimension there's only one way to

set up a particular standing wave so there's only one degree of Freedom

per frequency but in higher um dimensions for example in two Dimensions as we can
see over here notice that if there are you know at higher frequencies if there are
more Lopes then there are more ways in which you can set it up and therefore you
will have more degrees of freedom at higher frequencies so putting it these two
together what we see is that at lower frequencies meaning High wavelength you have
less number of degrees of freedom but then as the

frequency becomes higher and higher the number of degrees of freedom

becomes more and more and more and the final piece of the puzzle over there was
equip partition theorem which suggested that at any temperature um the average
energy per degree of Freedom must be the same so if each degree of freedom on
average gets the same amount of energy immediately you can see the higher frequency
ones which have more degrees of freedom they end up getting most of the energy and
since there is no limit to it that causes that disastrous

curve now again we've talked about this in great detail in our previous
video but again you don't have to watch that if this summary makes sense to you we
can go forward no need to break the flow over here but plank now the question is
how do we solve for this and plon says M think logically we know this is wrong that
means at least one of these three must be wrong isn't it and so PL asks mahes which
of this do you think is wrong and I'm like it has to be the first one I mean
clearly that's the

problem there's right over there that's the problem right and plong says
well let's see first of all can you simulate a perfect black body as a whole in a
metallic Cube answer is yes there's nothing wrong with that because a hole does act
like a perfect absorb so it's a perfect emitter nothing wrong with that now if you
heat up that particular metalic Cube then indeed the thermal radiation will be
stored in the standing electromagnetic waves which act like a degree of freedom and
now it is true

that there is no limit to how short the frequency can be you can set up
any amount of standing weight of shorter and shorter and shorter frequencies
there's no limit to that which means this is accurate indeed you get infinite
degrees of freedom and that is accurate and I'm like okay that is very interesting
what about the next one degrees of freedom increases with frequency well we saw it
and that is also accurate this is just math there's nothing wrong with that so that
means there's only one option left

for us which can be wrong it is the equipartition theorem it has to be be

wrong and I'm like how can it be wrong it's a statistical law which says on average
every degree of Freedom should get the same amount of energy it makes sense and
plong says yeah and yet it has to be wrong because we know the other two are right
and so the next big question for us is that if that is wrong need to figure out why
it is wrong and what is the new Partition theorem how do we figure this out PL says
here's the

plan let's go back to the classical physics one more time time the same
thing that we saw earlier less degrees of freedom more degrees of freedom over here
and by the way the numbers are just for representation purpose they're not
mathematically accurate okay anyways now let's look at what the actual graph was it
looks like this and let's compare the two what's interesting is that at higher
wavelengths the classical physics actually agrees with the experiment that's
interesting it's at lower wavelengths you can see classical

physics starts overestimating of course lower the wavelength the

overestimation becomes more and more and more in fact if you were to zoom in over
here you will see even here is an overestimate but it's very small so we can start
get we can kind of get the picture the classical physics is doing an overestimate
equip partition theorem is an overestimate but at higher at higher wavelength that
overestimation is small but at lower and lower a wavelength that overestimation
becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and

that's why the graph ends up blowing up so since equipartition theorem is

an overestimate this means that in reality the energy per degree of freedom on
average must be less than e e divide by something we don't know how we don't know
why but it has to be not divid by something so that we can humble this graph but
more importantly over here it's an excellent agreement which means over here it
must be pretty much e divid by 1 point something there is a small discrepancy so it
must be very close over here the denominators must be very

close over here to one but as I go shorter and shorter the denominator
must increase because the discrepancy increases for example when I come over here
the denominator might become five so that 100 by 5 becomes 20 and there is a
significant decrease and that's how we can fix that point and if I come even
shorter maybe the denominator becomes even more and therefore it be the graph
becomes more and more humbled and then finally over here when I go to even left the
denominator becomes so much big that

the product starts decreasing again and eventually at very very short
wavelengths or very high frequencies you have very high number of degrees of
freedom but maybe the average energy over there is pretty much zero so the product
goes to zero this is how if we have this kind of a partition theorem then the graph
can be explained does that make sense and I'm like yeah I'm starting to get some
intuition I mean over here the average energy per degree of freedom is pretty much
the same as e not therefore the

product keeps growing just like what classically was predicted but then
the Energy starts reducing and so the growth is less than what is classically
predicted but eventually the energy becomes so small that the product starts
decreasing and then eventually goes to zero what's interesting over here is it's
kind of like what we did in our La exams like you know we didn't get the right
output and then we went back and changed the numbers to try and fit it right I mean
I wasn't the only one who did that right but the big question now

is plunk how do we explain this I mean equip partition theorem made

statistical sense to me right like every degree of freedom on average should get
the same amount of energy but now what's the explanation for this and plong says
well Mahesh quantization quantization is going to give an explanation but I'm like
how how does eqution theorem gets transformed into this particular energy function
just by introducing quantization well PL say it's kind of like how your ideas can
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description now back to understanding how quantization Saves the Day PL how how
does quantization do anything help you understand and flang says well let's do look
at it step by step first let's take an example imagine you have a bunch of tennis
balls just floating around at different heights then you will have some of these
balls with very low potential energies and some of these balls at very high
potential energies right and therefore there will be some

average energy we'll call that average energy as e not what's interesting
over here is that H you'll find more balls at lower energy and as you go higher and
higher there'll be lesser and lesser balls it's kind of like the air molecules for
example over here the air density is very high closer to the ground but as you go
higher up as you know as you as the energy increases the number of air molecules
per volume starts decreasing okay and the same thing applies to the standing waves
inside our metallic Cube if you take any

specific wavelength it can't have any energies right so the distribution

would be well you will have all the possible energies you will have the lowest
energies and you will have the highest energies remember energy of an
electromagnetic wave only depends on its amplitude so lower energy is low amplitude
higher energy is high amplitude but the distribution would be you'll find a lot of
these waves at very low energy and as you in as you go up the energy the number of
these waves will start reducing but again what's

important is that there will be some average value and that average value
is e not now classically speaking classical physics says the same story should hold
good for all other frequencies so if you consider high frequency visible light the
same story The distribution is the same everything is the same remember energy only
depends upon amplitude as far as classical physics is concerned has nothing to do
with frequency so the same story holds for frequency and so even for higher
frequency waves well the

average energy stays the same regardless of how high the frequency go go
average energy stays the same and this is your equ partition theorem and this leads
to the disastrous ultraviolet catastrophe but now let's introduce quantization and
see what happens let's go back to our tennis balls over here and we'll now
introduce some levels kind of like imagine you're introducing some planks in
between and we'll now put the condition that the balls cannot be hanging or
floating in the air anymore they have to be sitting on either the

ground level or the first level or the second level or the third level
nothing in between they have to be sitting over there this is called quantization
and this minimum level size is what we call a quanta now the moment we do that it's
kind of like the balls will now all fall down right so that see these balls will be
on level zero all these balls will be at level one you don't have anything in
between and so on and so forth now when that happens look at the energy each ball
has lost some energy

and therefore plunk asks mahes what happens to the overall average
potential energy well I'm like since each ball has lost some energy the average
potential energy should be smaller than before it should become smaller but what's
interesting is that since the quanta size over here is pretty small I mean you have
a lot of energy levels available the balls didn't have to fall much they fell just
a little bit as you can see here and therefore the change was not much so although
the average energy reduced it didn't reduce that

much it's still pretty much same as e not but now what if we go back and
increase the quanta size let's double it let's say for example over here what
happens now oohoo now the balls will fall more and now look the average energy has
reduced quite a lot compared to before can you see that because the balls have to
fall more so if the quanta size increases look the balls fall more the average
energy reduces more and if you go back and increase the quantum size even more the
balls fall down even more and look the average energy now

reduces considerably and what if the qua size was much larger then almost
all the balls fall down and the average energy now almost goes to zero so what does
it all mean now plunk well plunk says and this is the key inside over here when we
quantize it the average energy becomes less than what classical equip partition
theorem says but what's interesting is that if the size of the quanta is very tiny
compared to the average energy that classical equip partition theorem predicts if
that Quant size is much

smaller than that then acup partition theorem has pretty much no effect
on it you get the same average energy as the classic iCal theory predicts because
the balls don't fall down much but if that Quant size becomes bigger and starts
becoming considerably big compared to you know the average energy that classical
physics predicts now the balls fall down a lot and the average Energy starts
reducing bigger the size of the quanta smaller is the average energy and eventually
the average energy just goes

to zero if the Quant size is just too big and so PL says mes look at this
this is how quantization transforms the equip partition theorems average energy it
reduces it and the size of the Quant controls how much it reduces it I'm like okay
how do we put this together to explain the graph now and pl says yeah I'm glad you
asked so what we can do first of all calm down let's calm down what we can do now
and let's see if this makes sense okay over here we want the average energy to be
less than equipartition theorem what predicted

classically but not much it should be very close to it it should be

almost approximately same as equ partion theorem so mahes what should be the quanta
size over here it has to be small we need to have small quanta sizes over here so
that it doesn't affect anything but then as we get shorter and shorter we want the
you know uh the average energy to be much smaller than what the equip potition
theorem predicted so that means we need the quanta size to become larger so look
what we need to fix this

Gra to fix this we need to introduce quantization of energy and we need

to make sure that the size of that quanta depends on the frequency at low
frequencies the quanta size should be smaller at high frequencies that quanta size
should be bigger does that make sense this means as the frequency increases the
size of that quanta should increase the quanta size should be directly related to
the frequency does this make intuitive sense now because it's again kind of like
what we used to do in our exams not only did

we change the values but now when the inator came we have to explain to
them why we had to change the value here to come up with the justification please
don't tell me I was the only one who should do that okay but this makes sense right
of course next part is purely mathematical to figure out the exact relationship but
at least it makes sense that the size of the Quant should be directly related to
frequency so plon worked out the math after doing a lot of trial and error and he
figured out the

the best relationship that was actually giving the best result was a
simple one directly proportional if the Quant size increases directly proportional
you know increases with a direct proportionality then you get the same shape as the
graph and then it was a matter of again doing the math to figure out what that
proportionality constant was to get the perfect fit and that proportionality
constant he called it the planks constant and again what I find fascinating about
this is you can see from the classical perspective this does

look like an act of desperation I mean we are introducing quantization

and then we're saying that the size of that quanta must be proportional to the
frequency should change with frequency I mean this feels like what are we doing
over here I mean we just we just desperately trying to fit the graph and that's
exactly what PL did and he would be excused in thinking that this wouldn't have any
broader significance but oh boy today we know that it did but anyways I'm getting
ahead of myself but now we can see this eventually is what e

is equal to HF this is where it all came from because this is how it

solve the graph okay so let's put it all together to see if we have complete
intuition for this okay going back to those wave distribution that we saw if we
introduce quantization then at high wavelengths or small frequencies the quanti
size is very small if the quanti size is very small then look there are so many
energy levels available they don't have to fall much as a result the average energy
stays the same as what equip partition

theorem predicted but as the frequency becomes larger wavelength becomes

smaller the quanta size becomes larger because it's directly related to quanta but
again if the quanta is too small then again you have a lot of energy levels
available and therefore the average energy doesn't change much and therefore equip
potion theorem pretty much works at high wavelengths or smaller frequencies but now
if you reduce the wavelength a lot or increase the frequency a lot now the Quant
size becomes significantly larger and so the

waves fall a lot more significantly and so now the average energy reduces
significantly and again if the frequency becomes way more very high say we go to
ultraviolet now the quanta size is very big and now the average energy waves fall
pretty much and the average energy pretty much dies out and goes to zero and this
is how the ultravet catastrophe is solved so just we're making sure that we are on
the same page over here because this is really subtle stuff okay when when you
consider continuous energy

with classical physics you get equip partition theorem because there's no
difference between different Waves Distribution is the same everything is the same
average energy is the same and therefore it predicts um equipartition theorem and
you get ultrair catastrophe but then we introduce quantization and make sure that
the quantize depends on the frequency this is the key part that ensures that at
high frequency Quant size are too big and so big that the waves do not populate a
lot of energy levels and so most of their energy just

goes out the average energy for high frequency just goes out to zero now
we could stop over here but it would be such a shame because I still have plankk
with me over here and I have my coffee and we now have the opportunity to reap the
benefits the fruits of all the hard work we have done by asking one last question
to plankk plankk why does that the peak of that graph shift with temperature why is
it at lower temperature it's mostly in the high wavelength and at lower at higher
temperature it starts shifting towards

lower wavelength what's going on over here how do we explain this there
are multiple ways to answer this question and plun says well one of my personal
favorite is to look at things this way okay going back to the graph over here think
of it this way so at high wavelengths the quanta sizes are very tiny and when you
have very tiny quanta size compared to the average remember average equ partition e
not whatever that was compared to that if the quantize is very small then we can
ignore the quantisation effect right

it's only when the quantize becomes big enough as I move to the left when
it becomes big enough quantization kicks in and then the graph gets severely
humbled okay now what happens when we increase the temperature when we increase the
temperature the average energy increases so much more energy available so what
happens to the graph well let's think about it step by step well first of all the
whole graph blows up and so we're going to scale down the whole graph so let's
scale it down but when we scale it down from this

perspective look even the Quantas over here have become much smaller
what's happening is that now this previously was big size Quant size was big but
now from this perspective this Quant size is also very small compared to the new
average energy now because so much energy is there therefore quantization will not
kick in at this at this particular wavelength like it did before I still have to
travel more to the left before the quantization kicks in maybe somewhere here now
the quanti are big enough for

that quantization to kick in and now the graph gets humed and that's why
the graph's peak shifts to the left that did that make sense I think it weirdly Mak
sense to me the same thing happens now at lower temperature what happens if you
lower the temperature well now now the whole energy average energy everything
becomes much lower and so now I need to scale up the graph to see this so let me
scale the whole thing up but when I scale up the graph now look now look the
quantization starts kicking in very

quickly somewhere here itself the quantization kicks in because the

levels the Quantas have become much bigger now compared to the average energy from
this new uh level that we are looking at things from and therefore the graph will
start getting humbled much more quickly and so the peak will be in the high
wavelength region I again I I I think it kind of makes sense and if it didn't it's
probably because I didn't articulate it well um but think over it and I think it'll
probably make sense what I find fascinating is is that this

is the reason why this coffee and you and me and everybody over here
we're all radiating a finite amount of energy mostly in the infrared region because
the temperatures over here is much much lower it's only when the temperature
becomes high enough like that of the sun that's when it starts giving out a lot of
light in the visible region and so on and so forth so it's so beautiful but of
course plunk had no idea what he had done he thought he was just soling he doing a
math trick he didn't think about

any broader significance to the energy Quantas and yet he had no clue how
to explain why energy must be quantized and why should it depend on the frequency
and stuff like that but it was Einstein who took this idea forward and in this
video you can see how he actually introduced the idea he took it Forward introduced
the idea of photons and actually got quantum mechanics started all right see you