When do you use planck constant

The point is that although the conversion factors are often real numbers rather than simple ratios of integers, all this involves fundamentally the same idea as my original example of bananas and bunches. Now we come to electron-volts. The first thing is to be clear that the electron-volt is a unit of energy. It is not a charge or a voltage or a time or a banana but an energy. Then by using the definition the first line below one can begin to work with it:.

When in doubt always use SI units or SI derived units. Then one can plug the values in the formula and gets the correct result in SI units or the SI derived unit corresponding to the physical quantity.

The other form with eVs is there for convenience and can be used if one tracks the units. Sign up to join this community.

The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. When using Planck's constant, how do I know when to use electron volts or joules? Ask Question. Asked 2 years, 3 months ago. Active 2 years, 3 months ago. Viewed 2k times. Improve this question. Donkey Kong Donkey Kong 8 8 bronze badges.

By: Patrick J. Kiger Dec 10, If you're a fan of the Netflix series " Stranger Things ," you've seen the climatic season three scene, in which Dustin tries to cajole his brainy long-distance girlfriend Suzie over a ham radio connection into telling him the precise value of something called Planck's constant, which also happens to be the code to open a safe that contains the keys needed to close the gate to a malevolent alternative universe.

But before Suzie will recite the magic number, she exacts a high price: Dustin has to sing the theme song to the movie "The NeverEnding Story. The constant — devised in by a German physicist named Max Planck , who would win the Nobel Prize for his work — is a crucial part of quantum mechanics , the branch of physics which deals with the tiny particles that make up matter and the forces involved in their interactions.

From computer chips and solar panels to lasers, "it's the physics that explains how everything works. Planck and other physicists in the late s and early s were trying to understand the difference between classical mechanics — that is, the motion of bodies in the observable world around us, described by Sir Isaac Newton in the late s — and an invisible world of the ultrasmall, where energy behaves in some ways like a wave and in some ways like a particle, also known as a photon.

As an explanation, he cites the example of a familiar harmonic oscillator , a child on a swing set. Hence, the child can swing at any continuous range of energies from zero up to a certain point.

But when you get down to the level of quantum mechanics, things behave differently. Only a certain amount of energy is allowed. Planck's constant defines the amount of energy that a photon can carry, according to the frequency of the wave in which it travels.

Electromagnetic radiation and elementary particles "display intrinsically both particle and wave properties," explains Fred Cooper , an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute , an independent research center in New Mexico, by email.

This notion was treated with deep skepticism at the time, but ultimately became a foundation of quantum mechanics, and Planck won a Nobel Prize in Physics in This led Planck produce the relationship. This has a value of 1. Kevin Beck holds a bachelor's degree in physics with minors in math and chemistry from the University of Vermont. Formerly with ScienceBlogs. More about Kevin and links to his professional work can be found at www.