Nothing in our experience tells us there should be a smallest possible size. Yet modern physics assumes just such a limit: a minimum possible measure for any object. It was originally proposed by Max Planck, who argued that measurement becomes impossible below this limit. Now known as the Planck scale, it is central to both cosmology and particle physics. But Planck himself never believed his scale described nature; he saw it as a mathematical construction, and only later did others extend it into a physical boundary. Some now maintain spacetime is divided into Planck-sized units, but critics argue the scale relies on arbitrary constants and no experimental evidence has been found to support it.
Is it a mistake to imagine there can be an ultimate limit to the parts of reality? Might the Planck scale be the result of a desire to end the mystery of reality as an endless series of Chinese boxes? Or did Planck uncover something necessary about the very structure of the universe?
Is it a mistake to imagine there can be an ultimate limit to the parts of reality? Might the Planck scale be the result of a desire to end the mystery of reality as an endless series of Chinese boxes? Or did Planck uncover something necessary about the very structure of the universe?
