Science
Science
Science
parts (molecules) of which most matter consists. This theory, called the kinetic molecular
theory, was developed largely in the 19th century. It was not established, however, until
after centuries of working with mistaken concepts.
The ancients thought that heat was an element. Empedocles proposed that the roots of all
things are the four elements—fire (heat), air, water, and earth. Therefore heat could only
be analyzed as something that flows into and out of substances. Even as brilliant a
scientist as Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, toward the end of the 18th century, considered
heat as a fluid of some sort, which he called caloric.
Experiments constantly disproved this view. Weighing matter when it was hot, then cold,
showed no change that would correspond to a flow of caloric in or out of the substance.
Eventually a group of physicists, including Benjamin Thompson, reasoned that motion is
transformed into heat (as when a bullet strikes through a piece of wood) and that heat is
not an element or a substance. It is a result rather of the motion of the invisible particles
that compose matter, which we now call molecules. Many different experiments
confirmed this and thus established the kinetic molecular theory. (See also heat.)
This theory proved satisfactory for the heat contained in matter. At the same time
physicists developed a theory that radiant heat passing through empty space in the form
of light is a type of wave, in a hypothetical substance called “ether” (whose existence was
eventually disproved, as mentioned earlier). The waves are emitted by a hot body such as
the sun; when they strike matter (as on the Earth), they stimulate the molecules in the
matter to greater motion. This “heats” the matter.
According to this theory, heat can be emitted and absorbed in any amount (and thus can
be divided into infinitely smaller amounts). In 1900, however, Max Planck forced a
change in this view. He had experimented with a blackbody radiator, a hollow object that
absorbs heat energy sent into it through a hole, then reradiates the energy somewhat as
iron would. As iron is heated more and more, it first gets hot, then glows with dull red
light, and finally becomes white hot—meaning that it is emitting every wavelength of
light in the spectrum, including radiant heat (infrared radiation) and ultraviolet radiation.
The view that heat energy is infinitely divisible required a certain distribution of energy
between the wavelengths of radiated energy. Earlier attempts to explain the form of the
spectrum of blackbody radiation had failed badly, predicting far too much radiation at
short wavelengths. Planck found a rather different—and very successful—explanation for
the observed spectrum, however. He achieved this by proposing that radiant heat energy
is not infinitely divisible. Instead, it is transferred in exact amounts, more like particles
than like waves, and there is a certain smallest particle that cannot be divided. Planck
called this smallest particle a quantum.
Since Planck's experiments were unquestionably accurate, physicists had to accept this
quantum theory. Soon the same sort of indivisible unit was found in light and in
electricity, and today the quantum theory ranks with relativity as one of the cornerstones
of modern physics. The only change from Planck's view is a later theory that says that
quanta travel in association with waves, as explained later in this article. (See also
energy; matter.)