量子论的诞生时间

量子力学不是一天之内诞生的，而是一个过程。

The history of quantum mechanics began essentially with the 1838 discovery of cathode rays by Michael Faraday, the 1859 statement of the black body radiation problem by Gustav Kirchhoff, the 1877 suggestion by Ludwig Boltzmann that the energy states of a physical system could be discrete, and the 1900 quantum hypothesis by Max Planck that any energy is radiated and absorbed in quantities divisible by discrete ‘energy elements’, E, such that each of these energy elements is proportional to the frequency ν with which they each individually radiate energy, as defined by the following formula:

where h is Planck's Action Constant. Although Planck insisted that this was simply an aspect of the absorption and radiation of energy and had nothing to do with the physical reality of the energy itself, in 1905, to explain the photoelectric effect (1839), i.e. that shining light on certain materials can function to eject electrons from the material, Albert Einstein postulated, as based on Planck’s quantum hypothesis, that light itself consists of individual quanta, which later came to be called photons (1926). From Einstein's simple postulation was borne a flurry of debating, theorizing and testing, and thus, the entire field of quantum physics.

普朗克首先提出能量量子化解决黑体辐射问题。应该算普朗克为量子力学第一人。然后是波尔、薛定谔、海森堡等人的贡献，与爱因斯坦的光电子理论有相通之处但关系不大。

每一项重大成果背后都是一个漫长的摸索过程。