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| name = Max Planck
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|ForMemRS}}
| image = Max Planck by Hugo Erfurth 1938cr - restoration1.jpg
| caption = Planck in 1938
| birth_name = Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck
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| birth_place = [[Kiel]], [[Duchy of Holstein]], [[German Confederation]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1947|10|4|1858|4|23}}
| death_place = [[Göttingen
| education = [[University of Munich]] ([[PhD]], 1879)<br />[[University of Berlin]]
| thesis_title = Über den zweiten Hauptsatz der mechanischen Wärmetheorie (On the Second Principles of Mechanical Heat Theory)
| thesis_url = https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/734
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}}
}}
{{Special relativity sidebar}}▼
'''Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=small|ForMemRS}}<ref name="frs">{{Cite journal | last1 = Born | first1 = M. | author-link = Max Born| title = Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck. 1858–1947 | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1948.0024 | journal = [[Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 6 | issue = 17 | pages = 161–188| year = 1948 | doi-access = free }}</ref> ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|p|l|æ|ŋ|k}};<ref>[https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/planck-s-constant "Planck's constant"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215022326/https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/planck-s-constant |date=15 December 2018 }}. ''[[Cambridge University Press|Cambridge Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{IPA|de|maks ˈplaŋk|lang|De-Max Planck.ogg}};<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/planck "Planck"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141226061525/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/planck |date=26 December 2014 }}. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German [[theoretical physicist]] whose discovery of energy [[quantum|quanta]] won him the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] in 1918.<ref>[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1918/ The Nobel Prize in Physics 1918] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905113018/http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1918/ |date=5 September 2015 }}. Nobelprize.org. Retrieved on 5 July 2011.</ref>
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Planck was gifted when it came to music. He took singing lessons and played piano, organ and cello, and composed songs and operas. However, instead of music he chose to study [[physics]].
[[File:Max Planck c1910 crop.jpg|thumb|left|Planck circa 1910]]▼
Planck enrolled at the [[University of Munich]] in 1874. Under professor [[Philipp von Jolly]]'s supervision, Planck performed the only experiments of his scientific career, studying the [[diffusion]] of [[hydrogen]] through heated [[platinum]], but transferred to [[theoretical physics]]. Jolly advised Planck against going into theoretical physics. Planck recalls that in 1878, Jolly argued that physics was almost complete, being a "highly developed, nearly fully matured science, that through the crowning achievement of the discovery of the principle of conservation of energy will arguably soon take its final stable form".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wells |first=James D. |date=2016-03-06 |title=Prof. von Jolly's 1878 prediction of the end of theoretical physics as reported by Max Planck |url=http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/163719 |journal=Scholardox |hdl=2027.42/163719 |language=}}</ref>
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== Career ==
[[File:Max Planck 1878.GIF|left|thumb|Planck in 1878]]
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 [[theory of heat|heat theory]] and discovered one after another the same [[Thermodynamics|thermodynamic]]al formalism as [[Josiah Willard Gibbs|Gibbs]] without realizing it. Clausius's ideas on [[entropy]] occupied a central role in his work.
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=== 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 approximation|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.<ref name="Kragh">For a solid approach to the complexity of Planck's intellectual motivations for the quantum, for his reluctant acceptance of its implications, see Helge Kragh,
[https://physicsworld.com/a/max-planck-the-reluctant-revolutionary/ Max Planck: the reluctant revolutionary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105061830/https://physicsworld.com/a/max-planck-the-reluctant-revolutionary/ |date=5 November 2018 }}, ''Physics World''. December 2000.</ref>
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[[File:Max Planck Nobel 1918.jpg|thumb|left|Planck in 1918, the year he was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] for his work on [[Quantum mechanics|quantum theory]]]]
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. ([[Ludwig Boltzmann|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 [[Planck units|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'.<ref>Egginton, William, ''[https://us5.campaign-archive.com/?e=01376ceb1d&u=6557fc90400ccd10e100a13f4&id=dc364d6f8b The Rigor of Angels: Max Planck unleashed a revolution in physics]'',
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 [[John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh|Rayleigh]], [[James Jeans|Jeans]], and [[Hendrik Lorentz|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."<ref>Heilbron, 2000, [https://books.google.com/books?id=d5zKH2Bx2AwC&pg=PA8
[[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."<ref name="frs"/>
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=== Einstein and the theory of relativity ===
<!-- Commented out: [[File:Max-Planck-und-Albert-Einstein.jpg|thumb|Max Planck presents [[Albert Einstein]] with the Max-Planck medal, Berlin 28 June 1929]] -->
▲{{Special relativity sidebar}}
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 (physics)|action]].<ref>''Einstein and the Quantum'', A.Douglas Stone, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, chapter 9, ''Tripping the light heuristic'', 2013.</ref>
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In 1944, Planck's son [[Erwin Planck|Erwin]] was arrested by the [[Gestapo]] following the attempted assassination of Hitler in the {{awrap|[[20 July plot]]}}. He was tried and sentenced to death by the [[People's Court (Germany)|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://physics.nobel.brainparad.com/max_karl_ernst_ludwig_planck.html |title=Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck |access-date=17 June 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512151051/http://physics.nobel.brainparad.com/max_karl_ernst_ludwig_planck.html |archive-date=12 May 2008 }}</ref>
== Personal life and death ==
[[File:Stadtfriedhof Göttingen Max Planck Familie.jpg|thumb|Planck's grave in Göttingen]]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 Planck|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 [[Hermann von Helmholtz|Helmholtz]].
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In January 1945, [[Erwin Planck]], to whom he had been particularly close, was sentenced to death by the [[Nazi]] [[People's Court (German)|Volksgerichtshof]] because of his participation in the [[July 20 plot|failed attempt to assassinate Hitler]] in July 1944. Erwin was executed on 23 January 1945.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Jürgen Heideking|author2=Christof Mauch|title=American Intelligence and the German Resistance to Hitler: A Documentary History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xoTWkzhf2uUC&pg=PA361|access-date=5 July 2011|year=1998|publisher=Westview Press|isbn=978-0-8133-3636-7|pages=361–|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130603082521/http://books.google.com/books?id=xoTWkzhf2uUC&pg=PA361|archive-date=3 June 2013|url-status=live}}</ref>
After World
== Religious views ==
[[File:DBPB 1952 99 Max Planck.jpg|thumb|Planck on a West German stamp (1952)]]
Planck was a member of the [[Lutheranism|Lutheran Church]] in Germany.<ref>Erich Dinkler, "Planck, Max", in ''Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', Third Edition, Volume V, Tübingen (Germany), 1961, col. 404–405</ref> He was very tolerant toward alternative views and [[religions]].<ref name="adherents.com">{{usurped|[https://web.archive.org/web/20170810130831/http://www.adherents.com/people/pp/Max_Planck.html The Religious Affiliation of Physicist Max Planck]}}. adherents.com. Retrieved on 5 July 2011.</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Max_Planck.aspx The Life Max Planck] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121102190708/http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Max_Planck.aspx |date=2 November 2012 }}. encyclopedia.com. Retrieved on 7 March 2012.</ref>
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 symbols." Atheists, he thought, attach too much importance to 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!"<ref name="adherents.com"/>
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== See also ==
{{Portal|Biographies|Physics}}
* [[List of things named after Max Planck]]
* [[German inventors and discoverers]]
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