Father Physics

On Uncertain Principles, Chad Orzel counts down to—what else?—Isaac Newton's birthday. Opening a link on this advent calendar yields not a chocolate, but an equation and an important piece of the physics puzzle. For December 19^th, we come to "one of the most revolutionary moment in the history of physics," Max Planck's "formula for the spectrum of the 'black-body' radiation emitted by a hot object at temperature T." Chad writes that Planck's initial mathematical trick became "the opening shot of the quantum mechanical revolution that completely changed physics." For the 18^th, Chad delves into statistical mechanics and entropy, writing "The key realization that makes it possible to extract predictions without needing to know the state of all 10²⁷ atoms making up some object is that such huge systems can be described statistically." But we're working backwards; if you want the whole story, start on December 1^st with "the absolute cornerstone of what's now known as classical mechanics," Newton's second law of motion. The most recent items are below, and don't hesitate to get excited as the 25^th draws near.

• The Advent Calendar of Physics: Einstein's Gravity on Uncertain Principles
• The Advent Calendar of Physics: Schrödinger on Uncertain Principles
• The Advent Calendar of Physics: Hydrogen on Uncertain Principles
• The Advent Calendar of Physics: Einstein's Nobel on Uncertain Principles