Ultraviolet Catastrophe

The ultraviolet catastrophe was a problem in physics where classical theories predicted that objects emitting blackbody radiation would produce infinitely increasing energy at ultraviolet frequencies, meaning they would emit infinite energy, which is impossible. This contradiction suggested the existing model was incomplete. The discovery of quantum mechanics by Max Planck in the early 20th century resolved this by introducing quantized energy levels, explaining why objects emit finite amounts of energy and fixing the unrealistic predictions predicted by classical physics.