For my art project I decide to combine Plato’s cave with Quantum Theory. The Allegory of the Cave is, as we all know, a metaphor for knowledge. Therefore, by linking these two concepts, it shows Max Planck’s discovery that the wave nature of light does not explain how an object can glow when its temperature increases. Planck showed that light must be emitted and absorbed in discrete amounts called quanta. However, prior to Planck’s assumption, light was characterized as being an electromagnetic wave. As a result, Planck’s theory paved the way for Quantum theory to expand into what it is today and shattered the framework of classical mechanics.

This is where Plato’s Cave becomes significant because as the story goes, the prisoners in the cave were only exposed to certain images that were a false representation of reality. When one of the prisoners was released from the cave, he saw the world differently, gained a new perspective and the idea of uncertainty was unleashed. The same can be said about Planck and Quantum Theory. Before, Plank was exposed to the idea that energy was continuous and no one questioned it. Therefore, we can say that, when Planck discovered that energy is quantized, he too gained a new perspective, allowing Quantum Theory to be adopted by several people, such as Einstein who won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the Photoelectric Effect which showed that light has a wave-particle duality. For that reason, I chose to have Planck come out of the cave as opposed to the “prisoner” or Einstein because Planck is considered the founder of Quantum Theory.

Plato’s point of the cave is that the world we observe through our senses is a misrepresentation of it; therefore, the only way to understand it is through education but not just by absorbing everything the teacher says but rather using the teacher as a guide in order to achieve our own knowledge. In my opinion, Planck is the perfect example of that because he was able to form his own way of thinking based on what was known back then about light. Since he was able to form his own knowledge, he formed the basis of Quantum Theory to a point where it progressed as a result. That is why the sun is projecting waves and particles, as discovered by Einstein, as opposed to just rays of light because it is signifying the progression of Planck’s theory of the nature of energy.