Max Planck

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (/ˈplæŋk/;[2] German:

[maks ˈplaŋk] ⓘ ;[3] 23 April 1858 – 4 October Max Planck
ForMemRS
1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose
discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1918.[4]

Planck made many substantial contributions to

theoretical physics, but his fame as a physicist rests
primarily on his role as the originator of quantum
theory and one of the founders of modern physics,[5][6]
which revolutionized understanding of atomic and
subatomic processes. He is known for the Planck
constant, which is of foundational importance for
quantum physics, and which he used to derive a set of
units, today called Planck units, expressed only in
terms of fundamental physical constants.
Planck in 1938
Planck was twice president of the German scientific
Born Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck
institution Kaiser Wilhelm Society. In 1948, it was
23 April 1858
renamed the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck-
Kiel, Duchy of Holstein,
Gesellschaft) and nowadays includes 83 institutions
German Confederation
representing a wide range of scientific directions.
Died 4 October 1947 (aged 89)
Göttingen, Allied-occupied

Early life and education Germany

Education University of Munich (PhD,
Planck came from a traditional, intellectual family. His 1879)
paternal great-grandfather and grandfather were both University of Berlin
theology professors in Göttingen; his father was a law Known for Quantum theory and
professor at the University of Kiel and Munich. One of See full List
his uncles was also a judge.[7]
Spouses Marie Merck
​
Planck was born in 1858 in Kiel, Holstein (now ​(m. 1887; died 1909)​
Schleswig-Holstein), to Johann Julius Wilhelm Planck Marga von Hösslin ​(m. 1911)​
and his second wife, Emma Patzig. He was baptized Children 5
with the name of Karl Ernst Ludwig Marx Planck; of Awards Nobel Prize in Physics for his
his given names, Marx was indicated as the
quantum theory (1918)
"appellation name".[8] However, by the age of ten he
signed with the name Max and used this for the rest of ForMemRS[1] (1926)

his life.[9] Foreign Associate of the

National Academy of Sciences
He was the sixth child in the family, though two of his (1926)
siblings were from his father's first marriage. War was Lorentz Medal (1927)
common during Planck's early years and among his Copley Medal (1929)
earliest memories was the marching of Prussian and
Max Planck Medal (1929)
Austrian troops into Kiel during the Second Schleswig
War in 1864.[7] In 1867 the family moved to Munich, Goethe Prize (1945)
and Planck enrolled in the Maximilians gymnasium Scientific career
school. There, his mathematical talents emerged
Fields Physics
early[10][11] and he later came under the tutelage of
Institutions University of Kiel
Hermann Müller, a mathematician who took an interest
in the youth, and taught him astronomy and mechanics University of Göttingen
as well as mathematics. It was from Müller that Planck Kaiser Wilhelm Society
first learned the principle of conservation of energy.
Thesis Über den zweiten Hauptsatz
Planck graduated early, at age 17.[12] This is how der mechanischen
Planck first came in contact with the field of physics. Wärmetheorie (On the Second
Principles of Mechanical Heat
Planck was gifted when it came to music. He took
Theory) ([Link]
singing lessons and played piano, organ and cello, and
de/handle/18452/734) (1879)
composed songs and operas. However, instead of
music he chose to study physics. Doctoral Alexander von Brill
advisor Gustav Kirchhoff
Planck enrolled at the University of Munich in 1874.
Hermann von Helmholtz
Under professor Philipp von Jolly's supervision,
Planck performed the only experiments of his scientific Doctoral Erich Kretschmann
career, studying the diffusion of hydrogen through students Gustav Ludwig Hertz
heated platinum, but transferred to theoretical physics. Julius Edgar Lilienfeld
Jolly advised Planck against going into theoretical
Max Abraham
physics. Planck recalls that in 1878, Jolly argued that
Max von Laue
physics was almost complete, being a "highly
developed, nearly fully matured science, that through Moritz Schlick
the crowning achievement of the discovery of the Walter Schottky
principle of conservation of energy will arguably soon Walther Bothe
take its final stable form".[13] Walther Meissner

In 1877, he went to the Friedrich Wilhelms University Richard Becker

in Berlin for a year of study with physicists Hermann Other notable Wolfgang Köhler
von Helmholtz and Gustav Kirchhoff and students Lise Meitner
mathematician Karl Weierstrass. He wrote that
Signature
Helmholtz was never quite prepared, spoke slowly,
miscalculated endlessly, and bored his listeners, while
Kirchhoff spoke in carefully prepared lectures which
were dry and monotonous. He soon became close
friends with Helmholtz. While there he undertook a program of mostly self-study of Rudolf Clausius's
writings, which led him to choose thermodynamics as his field.

In October 1878, Planck passed his qualifying exams and in February 1879 defended his dissertation
Über den zweiten Hauptsatz der mechanischen Wärmetheorie (On the Second Law of Mechanical Heat
Theory). He briefly taught mathematics and physics at his former school in Munich.
By the year 1880, Planck had obtained the two highest academic degrees offered in Europe. The first was
a doctorate degree after he completed his paper detailing his research and theory of thermodynamics.[7]
He then presented his thesis called Gleichgewichtszustände isotroper Körper in verschiedenen
Temperaturen (Equilibrium states of isotropic bodies at different temperatures), which earned him a
habilitation.

Career
With the completion of his habilitation thesis, Planck became an
unpaid Privatdozent (German academic rank comparable to
lecturer/assistant professor) in Munich, waiting until he was
offered an academic position. Although he was initially ignored by
the academic community, he furthered his work on the field of
heat theory and discovered one after another the same
thermodynamical formalism as Gibbs without realizing it.
Clausius's ideas on entropy occupied a central role in his work.

In April 1885, the University of Kiel appointed Planck as associate

professor of theoretical physics. Further work on entropy and its
treatment, especially as applied in physical chemistry, followed.
He published his Treatise on Thermodynamics in 1897.[14] He
proposed a thermodynamic basis for Svante Arrhenius's theory of
electrolytic dissociation.
Planck in 1878
In 1889, he was named the successor to Kirchhoff's position at the
Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin[15] – presumably thanks
to Helmholtz's intercession – and by 1892 became a full professor. In 1907 Planck was offered Ludwig
Boltzmann's position in Vienna, but turned it down to stay in Berlin. During 1909, as a University of
Berlin professor, he was invited to become the Ernest Kempton Adams Lecturer in Theoretical Physics at
Columbia University in New York City. A series of his lectures were translated and co-published by
Columbia University professor A. P. Wills.[16] He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences in 1914.[17] He retired from Berlin on 10 January 1926,[18] and was succeeded by Erwin
Schrödinger.[19] He was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1926 and the
American Philosophical Society in 1933.[20][21]

Professor at Berlin University

As a professor at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin, Planck joined the local Physical Society.
He later wrote about this time: "In those days I was essentially the only theoretical physicist there,
whence things were not so easy for me, because I started mentioning entropy, but this was not quite
fashionable, since it was regarded as a mathematical spook".[22] Thanks to his initiative, the various local
Physical Societies of Germany merged in 1898 to form the German Physical Society (Deutsche
Physikalische Gesellschaft, DPG); from 1905 to 1909 Planck was the president.
Planck started a six-semester course of lectures on theoretical
physics, "dry, somewhat impersonal" according to Lise Meitner,
"using no notes, never making mistakes, never faltering; the best
lecturer I ever heard" according to an English participant, James
R. Partington, who continues: "There were always many standing
around the room. As the lecture-room was well heated and rather
close, some of the listeners would from time to time drop to the
floor, but this did not disturb the lecture." Planck did not establish
an actual "school"; the number of his graduate students was only
about 20, among them:

1897 Max Abraham (1875–1922)

1903 Max von Laue (1879–1960)
1904 Moritz Schlick (1882–1936)
1906 Walther Meissner (1882–1974)
Plaque at the Humboldt University
1907 Fritz Reiche (1883–1960)
of Berlin: "Max Planck, discoverer of
1912 Walter Schottky (1886–1976) the elementary quantum of action h,
1914 Walther Bothe (1891–1957)[23] taught in this building from 1889 to
1928."

Entropy
Thermodynamics, also known as the "mechanical theory of heat" at the end of the 19th century, had
emerged at the beginning of this century from an attempt to understand the functioning of steam engines
and to improve their efficiency. In the 1840s, several researchers independently discovered and
formulated the law of conservation of energy, which is now also known as the first law of
thermodynamics. In 1850, Rudolf Clausius formulated the so-called second law of thermodynamics,
which states that a voluntary (or spontaneous) transfer of energy is only possible from a warmer to a
colder body, but not vice versa. In England at this time William Thomson came to the same conclusion.

Clausius generalized his formulation further and further and came up with a new formulation in 1865. To
this end, he introduced the concept of Entropy, which he defined as a measure of the reversible supply of
heat in relation to the absolute temperature.

The new formulation of the second law, which is still valid today, was: "Entropy can be created, but never
destroyed". Clausius, whose work Planck read as a young student during his stay in Berlin, successfully
applied this new law of nature to mechanical, thermoelectric and chemical processes.

In his dissertation in 1879, Planck summarized Clausius' writings, pointing out contradictions and
inaccuracies in their formulation and then clarifying them. In addition, he generalized the validity of the
second law to all processes in nature, Clausius had limited its application to reversible processes and
thermal processes. Furthermore, Planck dealt intensively with the new concept of entropy and
emphasized, that entropy is not only a property of a physical system, but at the same time a measure of
the irreversibility of a process: If entropy is generated in a process, it is irreversible, since entropy cannot
be destroyed according to the second law. In reversible processes, the entropy remains constant. He
presented this fact in detail in 1887 in a series of treatises entitled "On the Princip of the Increase of
Entropy".[24]
In his study of the concept of entropy, Planck did not follow the molecular, probabilistic interpretation
that prevailed at the time, as these do not provide absolute proof of universality. Instead, he pursued a
phenomenological approach and was also skeptical of atomism. Even though he later abandoned this
attitude in the course of his work on the law of radiation, his early work impressively shows the
possibilites of thermodynamics in solving concrete physicochemical problems.[25][26]

Planck's understanding of entropy included the realization that the maximum of entropy corresponds to
the equilibrium state. The accompanying conclusion that knowledge of the Entropy allows all laws of
thermodynamic equilibrium states to be derived corresponds to the modern understanding of such states.
Planck therefore chose equilibrium processes as his research focus and, based on his habilitation thesis,
researched the coexistence of aggregate states and the equilibrium of gas reactions, for example. This
work on the frontier of chemical thermodynamics also received great attention due to the rapidly
expanding chemical work at that time.

Independently of Planck, Josiah Willard Gibbs had also discovered almost all the knowledge Planck
gained about the properties of physicochemical equilibria and published them from 1876 onwards. Planck
was unaware of these essays, and they did not appear in German until 1892. However, both scientists
approached the topic in different ways, while Planck dealt with irreversible processes, Gibbs looked at
equilibria. This approach was finally able to prevail because of its simplicity, but Planck's approach is
attributed the greater universality.[27]

Black-body radiation
In 1894, Planck turned his attention to the problem of black-body
radiation. The problem had been stated by Kirchhoff in 1859:
"how does the intensity of the electromagnetic radiation emitted
by a black body (a perfect absorber, also known as a cavity
radiator) depend on the frequency of the radiation (i.e., the color
of the light) and the temperature of the body?". The question had
been explored experimentally, but no theoretical treatment had
agreed with the experimentally observed evidence. Wilhelm Wien
proposed Wien's law, which correctly predicted the behaviour at
high frequencies, but failed at low frequencies. The Rayleigh–
Jeans law, another approach to the problem, agreed with
experimental results at low frequencies, but created what was later
known as the "ultraviolet catastrophe" at high frequencies, as
predicted by classical physics. However, contrary to many
textbooks, this was not a motivation for Planck.[28]

Planck's first proposed solution to the problem in 1899 followed

Planck in 1901
from what he called the "principle of elementary disorder", which
allowed him to derive Wien's law from a number of assumptions
about the entropy of an ideal oscillator, creating what was referred to as the Wien–Planck law. Soon,
however, it was found that experimental evidence did not confirm the new law at all, to Planck's
frustration. He revised his approach and now derived the first version of the famous Planck black-body
radiation law, which described clearly the experimentally observed black-body spectrum. It was first
proposed in a meeting of the DPG on 19 October 1900 and published in 1901. (This first derivation did
not include energy quantisation, and did not use statistical mechanics, to which he held an aversion.) In
November 1900 Planck revised this first version, now relying on Boltzmann's statistical interpretation of
the second law of thermodynamics as a way of gaining a more fundamental understanding of the
principles behind his radiation law. Planck was deeply suspicious of the philosophical and physical
implications of such an interpretation of Boltzmann's approach; thus his recourse to them was, as he later
put it, "an act of despair ... I was ready to sacrifice any of my previous convictions about physics".[28]

The central assumption behind his new derivation, presented to the DPG on 14 December 1900, was the
supposition, now known as the Planck postulate, that electromagnetic energy could be emitted only in
quantized form, in other words, the energy could only be a multiple of an elementary unit:

where h is the Planck constant, also known as Planck's action quantum (introduced already in 1899), and
ν is the frequency of the radiation. Note that the elementary units of energy discussed here are
represented by hν and not simply by ν. Physicists now call these quanta photons, and a photon of
frequency ν will have its own specific and unique energy. The total energy at that frequency is then equal
to hν multiplied by the number of photons at that frequency.

At first Planck considered that quantisation was only "a purely

formal assumption ... actually I did not think much about it ...";
nowadays this assumption, incompatible with classical physics, is
regarded as the birth of quantum physics and the greatest
intellectual accomplishment of Planck's career. (Boltzmann had
been discussing in a theoretical paper in 1877 the possibility that
the energy states of a physical system could be discrete). The
discovery of the Planck constant enabled him to define a new
universal set of physical units (such as the Planck length and the
Planck mass), all based on fundamental physical constants, upon
which much of quantum theory is based. In a discussion with his
son in December 1918 Planck described his discovery as 'a
discovery of the first rank, comparable perhaps only to the
discoveries of Newton'.[29] In recognition of Planck's fundamental
contribution to a new branch of physics, he was awarded the
Planck in 1918, the year he was Nobel Prize in Physics for 1918; (he received the award in
awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1919).[30][31]
for his work on quantum theory
Subsequently, Planck tried to grasp the meaning of energy quanta,
but to no avail. "My unavailing attempts to somehow reintegrate
the action quantum into classical theory extended over several years and caused me much trouble." Even
several years later, other physicists such as Rayleigh, Jeans, and Lorentz set the Planck constant to zero in
order to align with classical physics, but Planck knew well that this constant had a precise nonzero value.
"I am unable to understand Jeans' stubbornness – he is an example of a theoretician as should never be
existing, the same as Hegel was for philosophy. So much the worse for the facts if they don't fit."[32]

Max Born wrote about Planck: "He was, by nature, a conservative mind; he had nothing of the
revolutionary and was thoroughly skeptical about speculations. Yet his belief in the compelling force of
logical reasoning from facts was so strong that he did not flinch from announcing the most revolutionary
idea which ever has shaken physics."[1]

Einstein and the theory of relativity

In 1905, the three epochal papers by Albert Einstein were published in the journal Annalen der Physik.
Planck was among the few who immediately recognized the significance of the special theory of
relativity. Thanks to his influence, this theory was soon widely accepted in Germany. Planck also
contributed considerably to extend the special theory of relativity. For example, he recast the theory in
terms of classical action.[33]

Einstein's hypothesis of light quanta (photons), based on Heinrich Hertz's 1887 discovery (and further
investigation by Philipp Lenard) of the photoelectric effect, was initially rejected by Planck. He was
unwilling to discard completely Maxwell's theory of electrodynamics. "The theory of light would be
thrown back not by decades, but by centuries, into the age when Christiaan Huygens dared to fight
against the mighty emission theory of Isaac Newton ..."[34]

In 1910, Einstein pointed out the anomalous behavior of specific heat at low temperatures as another
example of a phenomenon which defies explanation by classical physics. Planck and Walther Nernst,
seeking to clarify the increasing number of contradictions, organized the First Solvay Conference
(Brussels 1911). At this meeting Einstein was able to convince Planck.

Meanwhile, Planck had been appointed dean of Berlin University, whereby it was possible for him to call
Einstein to Berlin and establish a new professorship for him (1914). Soon the two scientists became close
friends and met frequently to play music together.

First World War

At the onset of the First World War Planck endorsed the general excitement of the public, writing that,
"Besides much that is horrible, there is also much that is unexpectedly great and beautiful: the smooth
solution of the most difficult domestic political problems by the unification of all parties (and) ... the
extolling of everything good and noble."[35][36] Planck also signed the infamous "Manifesto of the 93
intellectuals", a pamphlet of polemic war propaganda (while Einstein retained a strictly pacifistic attitude
which almost led to his imprisonment, only being spared thanks to his Swiss citizenship).

In 1915, when Italy was still a neutral power, Planck voted successfully for a scientific paper from Italy,
which received a prize from the Prussian Academy of Sciences, where Planck was one of four permanent
presidents.

Post-war and the Weimar Republic

In the turbulent post-war years, Planck, now the highest authority of German physics, issued the slogan
"persevere and continue working" to his colleagues.

In October 1920, he and Fritz Haber established the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft
(Emergency Organization of German Science), aimed at providing financial support for scientific
research. A considerable portion of the money the organization would distribute was raised abroad.
Planck held leading positions at Berlin University, the Prussian Academy of Sciences, the German
Physical Society, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (which became the Max Planck Society in 1948).
During this time economic conditions in Germany were such that he was hardly able to conduct research.
In 1926, Planck became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[37]

During the interwar period, Planck became a member of the Deutsche Volks-Partei (German People's
Party), the party of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Gustav Stresemann, which aspired to liberal aims for
domestic policy and rather revisionistic aims for politics around the world.

Planck disagreed with the introduction of universal suffrage and later expressed the view that the Nazi
dictatorship resulted from "the ascent of the rule of the crowds".[38]

Quantum mechanics
At the end of the 1920s, Niels Bohr, Werner
Heisenberg, and Wolfgang Pauli had worked out
the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum
mechanics, but it was rejected by Planck, and by
Schrödinger, Laue, and Einstein as well. Planck
expected that wave mechanics would soon render
quantum theory – his own child – unnecessary.
This was not to be the case, however. Further
work only served to underscore the enduring
central importance of quantum theory, even
against his and Einstein's philosophical
revulsions. Here Planck experienced the truth of
From left to right: W. Nernst, A. Einstein, Planck, R. A.
his own earlier observation from his struggle Millikan, and von Laue at a dinner given by von Laue in
with the older views during his younger years: Berlin on 11 November 1931
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by
convincing its opponents and making them see
the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar
with it."[39]

Nazi dictatorship and the Second World War

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Planck was 74 years old. He witnessed many Jewish friends and
colleagues expelled from their positions and humiliated, and hundreds of scientists emigrate from Nazi
Germany. Again he tried to "persevere and continue working" and asked scientists who were considering
emigration to remain in Germany. Nevertheless, he did help his nephew, the economist Hermann
Kranold, to emigrate to London after his arrest.[40] He hoped the crisis would abate soon and the political
situation would improve.

Otto Hahn asked Planck to gather well-known German professors in order to issue a public proclamation
against the treatment of Jewish professors, but Planck replied, "If you are able to gather today 30 such
gentlemen, then tomorrow 150 others will come and speak against it, because they are eager to take over
the positions of the others."[41] Under Planck's leadership, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) avoided
open conflict with the Nazi regime, except concerning the Jewish Fritz Haber. In May of 1933 Planck
requested and received an interview with the recently appointed Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler to
discuss the issue, telling him that the "forced immigration of Jews would kill German science and Jews
could be good Germans", to which the chancellor replied "but we don't have anything against the Jews,
only against communists". Planck was therefore unsuccessful, since this reply "took from him every basis
for further negotiation",[42] as to Hitler "the Jews are all Communists, and these are my enemies." In the
following year, 1934, Haber died in exile.[43]

One year later, Planck, having been the president of the KWG since 1930, organized in a somewhat
provocative style an official commemorative meeting for Haber. He also succeeded in secretly enabling a
number of Jewish scientists to continue working in institutes of the KWG for several years. In 1936, his
term as president of the KWG ended, and the Nazi government pressured him to refrain from seeking
another term.

As the political climate in Germany gradually became more hostile, Johannes Stark, prominent exponent
of the Deutsche Physik ("German Physics", also called "Aryan Physics") attacked Planck, Arnold
Sommerfeld, and Heisenberg for continuing to teach the theories of Einstein, calling them "white Jews".
The "Hauptamt Wissenschaft" (Nazi government office for science) started an investigation of Planck's
ancestry, claiming that he was "1/16 Jewish", but Planck denied it.[44]

In 1938, Planck celebrated his 80th birthday. The DPG held a celebration, during which the Max-Planck
medal (founded as the highest medal by the DPG in 1928) was awarded to French physicist Louis de
Broglie. At the end of 1938, the Prussian Academy lost its remaining independence and was taken over
by Nazis (Gleichschaltung). Planck protested by resigning his presidency. He continued to travel
frequently, giving numerous public talks, such as his talk on Religion and Science, and five years later he
was sufficiently fit to climb 3,000-metre peaks in the Alps.

During the Second World War the increasing number of Allied bombing missions against Berlin forced
Planck and his wife to temporarily leave the city and live in the countryside. In 1942, he wrote: "In me an
ardent desire has grown to persevere this crisis and live long enough to be able to witness the turning
point, the beginning of a new rise." In February 1944, his home in Berlin was completely destroyed by an
air raid, annihilating all his scientific records and correspondence. His rural retreat was threatened by the
rapid advance of the Allied armies from both sides.

In 1944, Planck's son Erwin was arrested by the Gestapo following the attempted assassination of Hitler
in the 20 July plot. He was tried and sentenced to death by the People's Court in October 1944. Erwin was
hanged at Berlin's Plötzensee Prison in January 1945. The death of his son destroyed much of Planck's
will to live.[45]

Personal life and death

In March 1887, Planck married Marie Merck (1861–1909), sister of a school fellow, and moved with her
into a sublet apartment in Kiel. They had four children: Karl (1888–1916), the twins Emma (1889–1919)
and Grete (1889–1917), and Erwin (1893–1945).

After living in the apartment in Berlin, the Planck family lived in a villa in Berlin-Grunewald,
Wangenheimstrasse 21. Several other professors from University of Berlin lived nearby, among them
theologian Adolf von Harnack, who became a close friend of Planck. Soon the Planck home became a
social and cultural center. Numerous well-known scientists, such
as Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner were frequent
visitors. The tradition of jointly performing music had already
been established in the home of Helmholtz.

After several happy years, in July 1909 Marie Planck died,

possibly from tuberculosis.

In March 1911 Planck married his second wife, Marga von

Hoesslin (1882–1948); in December his fifth child Hermann was
born.

During the First World War Planck's second son Erwin was taken
prisoner by the French in 1914, while his oldest son Karl was
killed in action at Verdun. Grete died in 1917 while giving birth to
her first child. Her sister died the same way two years later, after Planck's grave in Göttingen
having married Grete's widower. Both granddaughters survived
and were named after their mothers. Planck endured these losses
stoically.

In January 1945, Erwin Planck, to whom he had been particularly close, was sentenced to death by the
Nazi Volksgerichtshof because of his participation in the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in July 1944.
Erwin was executed on 23 January 1945.[46]

After World War II ended, Planck, his second wife, and their son were brought to a relative in Göttingen,
where Planck died on October 4, 1947. He was buried in the old Stadtfriedhof (City Cemetery) in
Göttingen.[47]

Religious views
Planck was a member of the Lutheran Church in Germany.[48] He
was very tolerant toward alternative views and religions.[49] In a
lecture in 1937 entitled "Religion und Naturwissenschaft"
("Religion and Natural Science") he suggested the importance of
these symbols and rituals related directly with a believer's ability
to worship God, but that one must be mindful that the symbols
provide an imperfect illustration of divinity. He criticized atheism
for being focused on the derision of such symbols, while at the
same time warned of the over-estimation of the importance of
such symbols by believers.[50]

In "Religion und Naturwissenschaft", Planck expressed the view

that God is present everywhere, and he held that "the holiness of
the unintelligible Godhead is conveyed by the holiness of Planck on a West German stamp
symbols." Atheists, he thought, attach too much importance to (1952)

what are merely symbols. He was a churchwarden from 1920 until

his death, and believed in an almighty, all-knowing, beneficent God (although not necessarily a personal
one). Both science and religion wage a "tireless battle against skepticism and dogmatism, against unbelief
and superstition" with the goal "toward God!"[49]

Planck said in 1944, "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the
study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as
such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to
vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force
the existence of a conscious and intelligent spirit [orig. geist]. This spirit is the matrix of all matter."[51]

Planck argued that the concept of God is important to both religion and science, but in different ways:
"Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for
physicists He is at the end of all considerations … To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the
crown of the edifice of every generalized world view".[52]

Furthermore, Planck wrote,

..."to believe" means "to recognize as a truth", and the knowledge of nature, continually
advancing on incontestably safe tracks, has made it utterly impossible for a person
possessing some training in natural science to recognize as founded on truth the many reports
of extraordinary occurrences contradicting the laws of nature, of miracles which are still
commonly regarded as essential supports and confirmations of religious doctrines, and which
formerly used to be accepted as facts pure and simple, without doubt or criticism. The belief
in miracles must retreat step by step before relentlessly and reliably progressing science and
we cannot doubt that sooner or later it must vanish completely.[53]

Noted historian of science John L. Heilbron characterized Planck's views on God as deistic.[54] Heilbron
further relates that when asked about his religious affiliation, Planck replied that although he had always
been deeply religious, he did not believe "in a personal God, let alone a Christian God".[55]

Publications
Planck, M. (1900a). "Über eine Verbesserung der Wienschen Spektralgleichung" ([Link]
[Link]/stream/verhandlungende01goog#page/n212/mode/2up). Verhandlungen der
Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft. 2: 202–204. Translated in ter Haar, D. (1967). "On
an Improvement of Wien's Equation for the Spectrum" ([Link]
o_maletin/Planck%20%281900%29,%20Improvement%20of%20Wien%[Link]) (PDF). The
Old Quantum Theory. Pergamon Press. pp. 79–81. LCCN 66029628 ([Link]
029628).
Planck, M. (1900b). "Zur Theorie des Gesetzes der Energieverteilung im Normalspectrum"
([Link] Verhandlungen
der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft. 2: 237. Translated in
ter Haar, D. (1967). "On the Theory of the Energy Distribution Law of the Normal Spectrum" ([Link]
[Link]/web/20160920053757/[Link]
0%29,%20Distribution%[Link]) (PDF). The Old Quantum Theory. Pergamon Press. p. 82.
LCCN 66029628 ([Link] Archived from
the original ([Link]
ck%20%281900%29,%20Distribution%[Link]) (PDF) on 20
September 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2014.

Planck, M. (1900c). "Entropie und Temperatur

strahlender Wärme" ([Link]
[Entropy and Temperature of Radiant Heat]. Annalen der
Physik. 306 (4): 719–737. Bibcode:1900AnP...306..719P
([Link]
P). doi:10.1002/andp.19003060410 ([Link]
02%2Fandp.19003060410).
Planck, M. (1900d). "Über irreversible
Strahlungsvorgänge" ([Link]
3) [On Irreversible Radiation Processes]. Annalen der
Physik. 306 (1): 69–122. Bibcode:1900AnP...306...69P
([Link]
doi:10.1002/andp.19003060105 ([Link]
2%2Fandp.19003060105).
Vorlesungen über die Theorie der
Planck, M. (1901). "Ueber das Gesetz der Wärmestrahlung, 1906
Energieverteilung im Normalspektrum" ([Link]
0.1002%2Fandp.19013090310). Annalen der Physik.
309 (3): 553–563. Bibcode:1901AnP...309..553P ([Link]
P...309..553P). doi:10.1002/andp.19013090310 ([Link]
310). Translated in Ando, K. "On the Law of Distribution of Energy in the Normal Spectrum"
([Link]
[Link]) (PDF). Archived from the original ([Link]
do/[Link]) (PDF) on 6 October 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
Planck, M. (1903). Treatise on Thermodynamics ([Link]
o00planuoft#page/n7/mode/2up). Ogg, A. (transl.). London: Longmans, Green & Co.
OL 7246691M ([Link]
Planck, M. (1906). Vorlesungen über die Theorie der Wärmestrahlung ([Link]
tails/vorlesungenberd03plangoog). Leipzig: J.A. Barth. LCCN 07004527 ([Link]
v/07004527).
Planck, M. (1914). The Theory of Heat Radiation. Masius, M. (transl.) (2nd ed.). P.
Blakiston's Son & Co. OL 7154661M ([Link]
Planck, M. (1915). Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics. Wills, A. P. (transl.). Dover
Publications. ISBN 0-486-69730-4.
Planck, M. (1908). Prinzip der Erhaltung der Energie ([Link]
gnAAAAMAAJ). Leipzig: [Link]. ISBN 978-0-598-83768-4.
Planck, M. (1943). "Zur Geschichte der Auffindung des physikalischen Wirkungsquantums".
Naturwissenschaften. 31 (14–15): 153–159. Bibcode:1943NW.....31..153P ([Link]
[Link]/abs/1943NW.....31..153P). doi:10.1007/BF01475738 ([Link]
7%2FBF01475738). S2CID 44899488 ([Link]
8).

See also

Biographies portal

Physics portal
 List of things named after Max Planck
German inventors and discoverers
Photon polarization
Statue of Max Planck
Zero-point energy

References
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Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (New York, 1949), pp. 184
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54. J. L. Heilbron (1986). The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck and the Fortunes of
German Science. Harvard University Press. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-674-00439-9. "On the other
side, Church spokesmen could scarcely become enthusiastic about Planck's deism, which
omitted all reference to established religions and had no more doctrinal content than
Einstein's Judaism. It seemed useful therefore to paint the lily, to improve the lesson of
Planck's life for the use of proselytizers and to associate the deanthropomorphizer of
science with a belief in a traditional Godhead."
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Sources
Aczel, Amir D. Entanglement, Chapter 4. (Penguin, 2003) ISBN 978-0-452-28457-9
Heilbron, J. L. (2000). The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck and the Fortunes of
German Science ([Link] Harvard University
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Pickover, Clifford A. Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind
Them, Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-533611-5
Medawar, Jean; Pyke, David (2012). Hitler's Gift: The True Story of the Scientists Expelled
by the Nazi Regime (Paperback). New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-61145-709-4.
Rosenthal-Schneider, Ilse Reality and Scientific Truth: Discussions with Einstein, von Laue,
and Planck (Wayne State University, 1980) ISBN 0-8143-1650-6

External links
Works by Max Planck ([Link] at Project
Gutenberg
Works by Max Planck ([Link] at
Faded Page (Canada)
Works by or about Max Planck ([Link]
A%22Planck%2C%20Max%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Max%20Planck%22%20OR%2
0creator%3A%22Planck%2C%20Max%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Max%20Planck%2
2%20OR%20creator%3A%22Planck%2C%20M%2E%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Max%20
Planck%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Planck%2C%20Max%22%20OR%20descriptio
n%3A%22Max%20Planck%22%29%20OR%20%28%221858-1947%22%20AND%20Planc
k%29%29%20AND%20%28-mediatype:software%29) at the Internet Archive
Works by Max Planck ([Link] at LibriVox (public domain
audiobooks)
Annotated bibliography for Max Planck ([Link]
[Link]/[Link]?browse=people%2FPlanck%2C+Max) from the Alsos Digital
Library for Nuclear Issues
Max Planck ([Link] – Encyclopædia
Britannica article
Max Planck Biography ([Link]
[Link]) – [Link]
Max Planck Institutes of Natural Science and Astrophysics ([Link]
Max Planck – Selbstdarstellung im Filmportrait (1942) ([Link]
_continue=175&v=5mwHXBn6mcM), [Cinematic self-portrait of Max Planck], Berlin-
 Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1942
Max Planck ([Link] on [Link] including the Nobel
Lecture, 2 June 1920 The Genesis and Present State of Development of the Quantum
Theory
Life–Work–Personality ([Link] – Exhibition on the 50th anniversary
of Planck's death
Newspaper clippings about Max Planck ([Link] in
the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Retrieved from "[Link]