Max Planck, a German physicist who died in 1947, is regarded as one of the fathers of Quantum Theory – the branch of physics which deals with the tiniest packets of matter that have a kind of dual personality, behaving like both a wave and a particle. Its an intriguing world where nothing is certain and some things are impossible to measure.
Bearing his name is the concept of the 'Planck length'. This minute distance is the length at which we enter the quantum world and therefore is the smallest measure of length that actually means anything. Below this distance space, time, gravity and all of conventional physics dissolve away.
Following on from this is the 'Planck time'. This is the length of time it would take a photon of light to travel the 'Planck length' – and its 10 to the power of -43 seconds! In a similar way to the Planck Length any time less than this is effectively meaningless, for the reasons given above.
The Planck time has deep philosophical implications. It means that the Universe effectively 'began' at this age, this is actually when time began. It also means that we cannot be sure of anything that happened 'before'*. Therefore, any world view that depends on determining what might have occurred prior to the Plank Time is on very shaky ground.
* NB Even the word 'before' is inappropriate here. Its like asking whats south of the South Pole!
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