In particle physics and physical cosmology, the Planck scale is an energy scale around 1.22 × 10 eV (the Planck energy, corresponding to the energy equivalent of the Planck mass, 2.176 45 × 10 kg) at which quantum effects of gravity become significant. At this scale, present descriptions and theories of sub-atomic particle interactions in terms of quantum field theory break down and become inadequate, due to the impact of the apparent non-renormalizability of gravity within current theories.