Abstract
The aphorism Natura non facit saltus (Latin for “Nature makes no leaps”) describes a fundamental assumption in occidental thinking: processes in nature do not happen discontinuously and abruptly, but continuously and predictably. An oak tree does not turn from a seedling into a majestic tree overnight, but needs a few decades for that.
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Notes
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The blue part of the flame is caused by radiation transitions of certain excited molecules, while the bright part is due to glowing soot particles (whose light emission behavior corresponds to that of a black body).
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Planck also managed to determine the value of this constant. But he was also able to determine the value of the so-called Boltzmann constant from it. This revealed a deeper connection between the theory of gases (in which the Boltzmann constant plays a central role) and microphysics. Later, Planck realized that these two constants, together with the gravitational constant, the electric field constant, and the speed of light, form a system of universal constants of nature, from which the universal units of length, mass, charge, time, and temperature can be derived. Today these constants are called “Planck units”.
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Einstein’s interpretation later turned out to be incorrect, leading to great discussions among physicists. The special feature of the wave–particle dualism of quantum physics is that one can measure the wave nature even with single-photon sources, so the wave nature is contained in each individual particle, and is not just a collective effect (see Chap. 9).
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They were discovered in 1802 by William Wollaston and, independently of Wollaston, in 1814 by Joseph von Fraunhofer.
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Jaeger, L. (2018). Natura facit saltus: On Quantum Jumps and Particles Being Created Out of Nothing. In: The Second Quantum Revolution. Copernicus, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98824-5_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98824-5_6
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