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Puchinita5
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Homework Statement
I'm taking physical chemistry 2 right now and we are discussing the basics of quantum mechanics, and I'm trying to understand black body radiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe.
What I don't understand is how quantization and Plancks distribution fix the ultraviolet catastrophe. I have googled a million websites, including answers on this forum, and it all sounds like jibber jabber. So here is what is in my head, someone please explain to me what I am really misunderstanding and try to dumb it down as much as possible!
So, a blackbody is something that absorbs all wavelengths of energy, and also emits all wavelengths of energy? And classical physics says that as you decrease the wavelength, the amount of energy reradiated by the object should get bigger and bigger. so theoretically, if you had an infinitely small wavelength, the object should radiate infinite energy? But the models disagree with this.
Then Planck said that energy is quantized. But how does this stop the energy from going to infinity? Because the way i picture it in my head, is that instead of a solid curved line going up to infinity, it should just be a dotted line instead since energy can only be integer values.
How does "energy packets" mean that instead of going to infinity it slopes back downward?
I am obviously way off, I just really cannot find an explanation dumbed down enough for me to understand.
The answers online i keep finding mention "oscillators" and "modes" and I have no idea what these mean so it doesn't help me at all.