I’ve heard some conflicting things, is the Planck Length the smallest possible length or not?

Question

I’ve heard some conflicting things, is the Planck Length the smallest possible length or not?

In: Physics

Answer 1

The Planck Length is the smallest possible *physical* length. You can write down a number that’s smaller, of course …. but you can’t do actual physics with distances smaller than the Planck Length and still get results that make sense.

So, technically, the Planck Length is the smallest possible length that is meaningful under the current Standard Model of physics. If there is a breakthrough in something like string theory, the situation could change, and it could become possible in the future to deal with smaller scales.