Question 13
One of the fundamental ideas of quantum mechanics is that energy is quantized. Light, for example, comes in single individual wave packets in whole numbers, as if they are particulate, excluding the possibility of a “half-energy” or anything in between. To aid in this phenomenon, it is useful to think of light coming as single photons, each with a set amount of energy. This can be very infinitesimally small to notice in our day-to-day life (but it is significant in smaller systems). To illustrate, how many photons of 505 nm light would be equivalent to the energy necessary to lift a 1 kg object 1 m above the ground? For reference, following are some useful constants: Acceleration due to gravity = 9.8 m/s² Planck’s constant=6.62607004 × 10⁻³⁴ m² kg / s speed of light=299 792 458 m / s Boltzmann’s constant = 1.38064852 × 10⁻²³ m² kg s⁻² K⁻¹.