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News and Views Feature
Nature 408, 661-664 (7 December 2000) | doi:10.1038/35047210
Quantum theory's last challenge
Giovanni Amelino-Camelia
Abstract
Quantum theory is 100 years old and still going strong. Combining general relativity with quantum mechanics is the last hurdle to be overcome in the 'quantum revolution'.
This year we celebrate 100 years of quantum theory, and in particular the anniversary of an announcement made by Max Planck at a meeting of the German Physical Society on 14 December 1900. Planck was interested in the nature of radiation emitted by hot objects, and in 1900 he devised a theory that described all of the experimental evidence, but that required a radical new concept: energy is not emitted or absorbed continuously, but in discrete amounts, called quanta.
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