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Concept

ultraviolet catastrophe

A glowing, circular object with a jagged edge emits radiant light, symbolizing the ultraviolet catastrophe concept in physics.

The prediction by classical physics, derived by Rayleigh and Jeans around 1900, that a hot cavity should radiate infinite energy at short wavelengths. Experiments showed the opposite: emission falls off in the ultraviolet. The mismatch was one of the deepest crises in nineteenth-century physics and was only resolved when Planck quantised the energy exchanged between radiation and matter, planting the seed of quantum mechanics.

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