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Einstein solid
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<p>The Einstein solid is a model of a crystalline solid that contains a large number of independent three-dimensional <a href="/facts/Quantum_harmonic_oscillator/JYA5J0h5">quantum harmonic oscillators</a> of the same frequency. The independence assumption is relaxed in the <a href="/facts/Debye_model/Hak5Spp8">Debye model</a>. </p><p>While the model provides qualitative agreement with experimental data, especially for the high-temperature limit, these oscillations are in fact <a href="/facts/Phonons/tflWW6vw">phonons</a>, or collective modes involving many atoms. <a href="/facts/Albert_Einstein/CNTet8qu">Albert Einstein</a> was aware that getting the frequency of the actual oscillations would be difficult, but he nevertheless proposed this theory because it was a particularly clear demonstration that quantum mechanics could solve the specific heat problem in classical mechanics. </p>