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I've read that "The Planck length is believed to be the shortest meaningful length (...)"(1).

Regardless of the factual accuracy of this claim, I'm wondering if: is there a related concept regarding energy? Or maybe even something less controversial, like a "quantum" of energy?


P.S. I have seen "Is the Planck length the smallest length that exists in the universe or is it the smallest length that can be observed?" and related questions/answers.

Marc.2377
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  • i.e., is the Hamiltonian of the universe gapped? I don't think anyone knows the answer, or whether the question is meaningful at all... – AccidentalFourierTransform Feb 02 '18 at 00:31
  • Duplicate?: No minimum quantum: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/246484/what-is-the-minimum-energy-a-quantum-can-bear-and-more – Rob Feb 02 '18 at 00:38

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I think the answer is no. The Planck energy is about a billion joules, so it certainly isn't the smallest possible amount of energy.

Systems like the particle in a box or the harmonic oscillator do have a minimum energy, which is nonzero. However, these minimum energies depend on the parameters of the potential, not just on universal constants. I'm not aware of any combination of universal constants, other than the Planck energy, that has units of energy.