Planck initially viewed his quantum hypothesis as a mathematical trick rather than a physical reality, only accepting its revolutionary implications years later.
While attempting to solve the "ultraviolet catastrophe" (the failure of classical physics to predict black-body radiation at high frequencies), Planck proposed that energy oscillators in a cavity could only change energy in discrete increments ( ), not continuously. Planck’s Constant ( Max Planck
): He introduced this fundamental constant of nature, which has a value of approximately , to define the relationship between energy and frequency. Planck initially viewed his quantum hypothesis as a