The Planck scale is a very large energy scale or a very small size scale where quantum effects of gravity become important. Physicists are interested in learning more about it, but it represents a fundamental limit on how small distances we can probe. The Planck energy is almost unimaginably large, and a particle accelerator powerful enough to directly probe the Planck scale is unlikely to be built in the near future. Physicists are looking for other ways to probe the Planck scale, such as looking for cosmic strings.
In physics, the Planck scale refers to a very large energy scale (1.22 x 1019 GeV) or a very small size scale (1.616 x 10-35 meters) where the quantum effects of gravity become important in describing the interactions between particles. At the scale of Planck’s dimensions, quantum uncertainty is so intense that concepts such as locality and causality become less significant. Today’s physicists are very interested in learning more about the Planck scale, as a quantum theory of gravity is something we currently lack. If a physicist could come up with a quantum theory of gravity that agreed with experiment, it would practically guarantee him a Nobel prize.
It is a fundamental fact of the physics of light that the more energy a photon (particle of light) carries, the shorter the wavelength it possesses. For example, visible light has a wavelength of about a few hundred nanometers, while the much more energetic gamma rays have a wavelength the size of an atomic nucleus. The Planck energy and the Planck length are related in that a photon would have to have an energy value of the Planck scale to have a wavelength as small as the Planck length.
To make matters even more complicated, even if we could create a photon that energetic, we couldn’t use it to precisely measure something at the Planck scale: It would be so energetic that the photon would collapse into a black hole before returning any information. Therefore, many physicists believe that the Planck scale represents some sort of fundamental limit on how small distances we can probe. The Planck length may be the smallest physically significant size scale there is, in which case the universe can be thought of as a tapestry of “pixels” – each one Planck length in diameter.
The Planck energy scale is almost unimaginably large, while the Planck dimensional scale is almost unimaginably small. The Planck energy is about a quintillion times greater than the energies obtainable in our best particle accelerators, which are used to create and observe exotic subatomic particles. A particle accelerator powerful enough to directly probe the Planck scale would have to have a circumference similar in size to the orbit of Mars, built of about the same amount of material as our Moon.
Since such a particle accelerator is unlikely to be built in the near future, physicists are looking for other ways to probe the Planck scale. One is looking for giant “cosmic strings” that may have been created when the universe as a whole was so hot and small that it had Planck-level energies. This would have happened in the first trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.
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