At the time, one of the biggest problems in physics was the “Blackbody spectrum”, which describes the spectrum of electromagnetic wavelengths emitted by a Blackbody. The problem with it was that the emitted spectrum was not explainable by known physics. Einstein achieved a breakthrough by considering light not just as a wave, but also as light quanta. Although this idea sufficiently explained the Blackbody spectrum, physicists (at least almost) unanimously rejected it. The fight between the “light is corpuscles” and “light is a wave” faction had been decided a century ago, with a clear victory for the “wave” faction.
I thought blackbody radiation was Planck, not Einstein.
(I think) Planck found the formula that matched the empirically observed distribution, but had no explanation for why it should hold. Einstein found the justification for this formula.
I thought blackbody radiation was Planck, not Einstein.
(I think) Planck found the formula that matched the empirically observed distribution, but had no explanation for why it should hold. Einstein found the justification for this formula.