A Direct Photoelectric Determination of Planck's "h"

Abstract

Quantum theory was not originally developed for the sake of interpreting photoelectric phenomena. It was solely a theory as to the mechanism of absorption and emission of electromagnetic waves by resonators of atomic or subatomic dimensions. It had nothing whatever to say about the energy of an escaping electron or about the conditions under which such an electron could make its escape, and up to this day the form of the theory developed by its author has not been able to account satisfactorily for the photoelectric facts presented herewith. We are confronted, however, by the astonishing situation that these facts were correctly and exactly predicted nine years ago by a form of quantum theory which has now been pretty generally abandoned.

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