On 14 December 1900 Max Planck delivered an epoch making address to the Physical Society in Berlin where he presented for the first time his complete formula describing the spectrum of black body radiation. In particular he introduced quanta of energy through his famous formula ε = hv where, what is now called Planck's constant h appears for the first time. We shall in this historical overview trace the pertinent steps which led, in the last few decades of the 19th century to the birth of quantum theory right at the turn of the 20th century.
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