Have you ever needed to make a quick hack to get something to work?

Like you needed to fix something or figure out a solution and you just totally

MacGyvered it.

You took the nearest random objects like a piece of bubble gum and a rusty razor

and a deflated balloon and you strung them together and you turned them into an airplane or something

and you just hoped for the best. We've all done it, right? Did it work? Did it work for a really

long time? Did it work so well that your ugly, quick, last-minute hack that was mostly based on hopes

and wishes and prayers became the standard way of doing things?

Did it work so well that other people started doing the exact same thing? Did it work so well that other people started doing the exact same thing?

Did it work so well that generations later your way of doing it, your hack was taught in schools?

Did it work so well that you won a Nobel Prize for it?

Well, welcome to the wonderful world of quantum mechanics, which was born in 1900 with

an ugly, ugly, ugly hack that worked and stuck. And to kick things off, I need to start with

black body radiation. Yes, here we go again. I think need to start with black body radiation.

Yes, here we go again.

I think I've only mentioned black body radiation about 47 times on this show.

So you already know it's kind of a big deal.

And in case you forgot, or for the new folks at the table,

black body radiation is a horrible name for a very cool thing.

It's the radiation given off by hot stuff, by you, by the sun, by the table in front of you,

by the road, by the earth. Like, if you have a big thing made of lots of particles and molecules and they're all

jiggling and wiggling around all over the place, they will emit radiation. And they will emit a

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