#shorts how the Planck constant (and the Reduced Planck Constant) are used in Quantum Mechanics - in 60 seconds!
Hi everyone, what do you think of me having a go at uploading a few shorts discussing some physics ideas in 60 seconds or less? In this video, I wanted to introduce you to the Planck Constant. This is a constant that originally popped up when Planck was studying photons.
Photons are packets of electromagnetic energy, which can be thought of as particles of light. Planck realised that if the energy of a photon was to be proportional to the frequency of that photon, then the constant of proportionality would have to be the Planck constant.
Labelled with the letter h, it is widely regarded as one of the fundamental universal constants, meaning it is thought to have the exact same value throughout our universe, and we base many other derived values on the numerical value of h.
Quantum mechanics is a very interesting theory in that it doesn't need many universal constants in order to give it any sense of scale... but the one it does need is the Planck constant.
The reduced Planck constant, simply h divided by 2pi, crops up a lot in quantum mechanics. So instead of writing h/2pi every time, physicists just gave it its own name, the Reduced Planck Constant.
As it turns out the spin of an electron (the inherent angular momentum it has without actually spinning or orbiting through space) is exactly half of the Reduced Planck Constant. No more, no less.
Thanks so much for watching, let me know if you'd like me to have a go at making a few more #shorts.
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