Why does black body radiation exist?
Until 1900, classical physics could not solve the problem of the strange spectrum of radiation emitted by a hot oven. The false prediction at the time was that an oven should radiate an infinite amount of energy, a problem which was known as the ultraviolet catastrophe. Max Planck solved this dilemma by introducing the concept of associating each wavelength with a specific amount of energy. By introducing math which quantizes energy in the form of indivisible packets, the observed blackbody radiation coming from ovens was then predicted accurately and a new physics was born: it was called “quantum,” meaning discrete in nature.
