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Planck length

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In physics, the Planck length, denoted P, is a unit of

1 Planck length =

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length, equal to 1.616 199(97) 1035metres. It is a base

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unit in the system of Planck units, developed by physicist 16.162 1036m 16.162 1027nm

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Max Planck. The Planck length can be defined from three

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fundamental physical constants: the speed of light in a

vacuum, the Planck constant, and the gravitational
constant.

1 Value

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2 Theoretical significance

Recent changes

3 Visualization

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11.706S

305.42 1027a0

US customary / Imperial units

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Natural units

53.025 1036ft 636.30 1036in

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SI units

4 See also
5 Notes and references

What links here

6 Bibliography

Related changes

7 External links

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Value

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Page information
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The Planck length

is defined as

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where

is the speed of light in a vacuum,

is the gravitational constant, and

is the

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reduced Planck constant. The two digits enclosed by parentheses are the estimated

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standard error associated with the reported numerical value.[1][2]

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The Planck length is about 1020 times the diameter of a proton,

and thus is exceedingly
small. At this scale, more Planck lengths would
fit inside a grain of sand volumetrically than
grains of sand would fit
inside the observable Universe.

Theoretical significance

[edit]

There is currently no proven physical significance of the Planck length; it is, however, a topic

etina
Dansk

of theoretical research. Since the Planck length is so many orders of magnitude smaller

Deutsch

According to the generalized uncertainty principle (a concept from speculative models of

Espaol

quantum gravity),
the Planck length is, in principle, within a factor of 10, the shortest

Esperanto

measurable length and no theoretically known improvement in measurement instruments

Franais
Gaeilge

than any current instrument could possibly measure, there is no way of examining it directly.

could change that.

In some forms of quantum gravity,
the Planck length is the length scale at which the
structure of spacetime becomes dominated by quantum effects, and it is impossible to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length[04/01/2015 16:11:56]

Planck length - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

determine the difference between two locations less than one Planck length apart. The

Hrvatski

precise effects of quantum gravity are unknown; it is often guessed that spacetime might

Italiano

have a discrete or foamy structure at a Planck length scale.[citation needed]

Latina

The Planck area, equal to the square of the Planck length, plays a role in black hole entropy.

Lietuvi

The value of this entropy, in units of the Boltzmann constant, is known to be given by

Magyar

, where

Nederlands

is the area of the event horizon. The Planck area is the area by which a

spherical black hole increases when the black hole swallows one bit of information, as was

proven by Jacob Bekenstein.[3]

Polski

If large extra dimensions

exist, the measured strength of gravity may be much smaller than

Portugus

its true (small-scale) value. In this case the Planck length would have no fundamental

physical significance, and quantum gravitational effects would appear at other scales.

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Suomi

In string theory,
the Planck length is the order of magnitude of the oscillating strings that
form elementary particles, and shorter lengths do not make physical
sense.[4] The string
scale

is related to the Planck scale by

, where

is the string coupling

constant. Contrary to what the name suggests, the string coupling constant is not constant,
but depends on the value of a scalar field known as the dilaton.
In loop quantum gravity, area is quantized, and the Planck area is, within a factor of 10, the
smallest possible area value.

Trke

In doubly special relativity, the Planck length is observer-invariant.

Ting Vit

The search for the laws of physics valid at the Planck length is a part of the search for the

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theory of everything.

Visualization

[edit]

The size of the Planck length can be visualized as follows: if a particle or dot about 0.1mm in
size (which is at or near the smallest the unaided human eye can see) were magnified in
size to be as large as the observable universe,
then inside that universe-sized "dot", the
Planck length would be roughly the size of an actual 0.1mm dot. In other words, the
universe is
to a visible dot as a visible dot is to Planck length: The diameter of the
observable universe is to within less than an order of magnitude, larger than a 0.1 millimeter
object, roughly at or near the limits of the unaided human eye, by about the same factor
(1031 ) as that 0.1mm object or dot is larger than the Planck length. More simply on a
logarithmic scale, a dot is halfway between the Planck length and the size of the observable
universe.

See also

[edit]

FockLorentz symmetry
Orders of magnitude (length)
Planck energy
Planck mass
Planck epoch
Planck scale
Planck temperature
Planck time

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Planck length - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Notes and references

[edit]

1. ^ John Baez, The Planck Length

2. ^ NIST, "Planck length ", NIST's published

CODATA constants

3. ^ "Phys. Rev. D 7, 2333 (1973): Black Holes and Entropy" . Prd.aps.org. Retrieved
2013-10-21.
4. ^ Cliff Burgess; Fernando Quevedo (November 2007). "The Great Cosmic RollerCoaster Ride". Scientific American (print) (Scientific American, Inc.). p.55.

Bibliography

[edit]

Garay, Luis J. (January 1995). "Quantum gravity and minimum length". International
Journal of Modern Physics A 10 (2): 145 ff. arXiv:gr-qc/9403008v2 .
Bibcode:1995IJMPA..10..145G . doi:10.1142/S0217751X95000085 .

External links

[edit]

Bowley, Roger; Eaves, Laurence (2010). "Planck Length" . Sixty Symbols. Brady Haran
for the University of Nottingham.
Kadish, Seth (2014). "We All Might Be Living In An Infinite Hologram" . Wired (website)
.
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Planck's natural units

Planck's constant
Planck units
Planck time
Base

Planck length

Planck

Planck mass

units

Planck charge
Planck temperature
Planck energy
Planck force
Planck power
Planck density

Derived
Planck
units

Planck angular frequency

Planck pressure
Planck current
Planck voltage
Planck impedance
Planck momentum
Planck area
Planck volume
Physics portal

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Planck length - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Categories: Units of length

Natural units

This page was last modified on 29 December 2014 at 18:38.

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