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It might seem counter-intuitive for gaps to be formed in a "continuous spectrum", but according to Planck energy carried by a photon is quantised and can have only discrete values so therefore accordingly the wavenumber should also be quantised and have only discrete values. Does that mean that when we use an ultra-powerful hypothetical microscope we should be able to see gaps between discrete lines in a continuous spectrum

(hypothetical because how would you see gaps between light using light? wouldn't Heisenberg be disappointed? especially when then the gap is very minute? or maybe we might be using sensitive detectors to see if there are gaps between photons or something I didn't consider)

Qmechanic
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Adil Mohammed
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  • Possible duplicates: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/169209/2451 , https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/73959/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic Aug 17 '20 at 11:51
  • Look at atomic spectra http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/atspect3.html#c1 . There is quantization of the available frequencies /wavlengths beause the available energy levels are discrete, and for an electron to go to a lower level, it has to induce a photon to leave.Photons in general ( you can think of them as quanta of energy) can have any energy.They are elementary particles int he particle table, of mass zero. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg/240px-Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg.png – anna v Aug 17 '20 at 12:01

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Quantisation does not work like that. In the case of light it is more like requiring that a pile of debris is made of discrete rocks (photons), but those rocks can be any size (energy). The uncertainty principle means that even if you arrange the rocks in a "spectrum" of sizes from planetary core to dust, these sizes will blur into one another and the spectrum will be smooth.

Guy Inchbald
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