Max Planck
Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, FRSwas a German theoretical physicist whose work on quantum theory won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth23 April 1858
CityKiel, Germany
CountryGermany
convincing eventually familiar generation grows opponents rather science scientific triumph truth
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
anybody engaged entrance gates science scientific seriously temple work written
Anybody who has been seriously engaged is scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'
science black density
The spectral density of black body radiation ... represents something absolute, and since the search for the absolutes has always appeared to me to be the highest form of research, I applied myself vigorously to its solution.
nature body temperature
Nature prefers the more probable states to the less probable because in nature processes take place in the direction of greater probability. Heat goes from a body at higher temperature to a body at lower temperature because the state of equal temperature distribution is more probable than a state of unequal temperature distribution.
art cutting taught-us
Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part by itself... We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts.
science numbers giving
If E is considered to be a continuously divisible quantity, this distribution is possible in infinitely many ways. We consider, however-this is the most essential point of the whole calculation-E to be composed of a well-defined number of equal parts and use thereto the constant of nature h = 6.55 ×10-27 erg sec. This constant multiplied by the common frequency ? of the resonators gives us the energy element E in erg, and dividing E by E we get the number P of energy elements which must be divided over the N resonators.
science troops shock
Experimenters are the shock troops of science.
atoms matter virtue
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force...
discovery law ideas
The worth of a new idea is invariably determined, not by the degree of its intuitiveness-which incidentally, is to a major extent a matter of experience and habit-but by the scope and accuracy of the individual laws to the discovery of which it eventually leads.
goal culture coherence
The goal is nothing other than the coherence and completeness of the system not only in respect of all details, but also in respect of all physicists of all places, all times, all peoples, and all cultures.
opponents triumph dies
Truth never triumphs-its opponents just die out,
success guarantees betrayed
An indispensable hypothesis, even though still far from being a guarantee of success, is however the pursuit of a specific aim, whose lighted beacon, even by initial failures, is not betrayed.
intelligent curves light
Thus, the photons which constitute a ray of light behave like intelligent human beings: out of all possible curves they always select the one which will take them most quickly to their goal.
law realms causation
Religion belongs to the realm that is inviolable before the law of causation and therefore closed to science.