quoted 5 lines it's a physics thing. classical physics predicted a certain model of> it's a physics thing. classical physics predicted a certain model of
> black body radiation which was observed to be incorrect for the
> ultraviolet area of the spectrum. nobody could figure it out, hence
> it became an ultraviolet catastrophe. max planck solved it when he
> invented quantum mechanics.
Basically, if you (incorrectly) assume that radiation is a continuous stream
of energy, you can prove that the energy that a black box emits at a certain
frequency is proportional to the frequency. One consequence of this is that
you can then prove that a black box emits an infinite amount of energy.
This is, of course false, and empirical measurements showed that once you
got to the ultraviolet band of radiation, the energy levels started to
decrease as the frequencies got higher. The theory's contradiction with
the observed behavior called the Ultraviolet Catastrophe.
The Ultraviolet Catastrophe is solved by assuming that radiation is not a
continuous stream of energy, but instead travels in discrete units, having
some wavelike properties and some particle-like properties.