Max Planck Quotes (1858-1947)

“A scientist is happy, not in resting on his attainments but in the steady acquisition of fresh knowledge.”

“We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.”

“And if we ascribe to God, in addition to His omnipotence and omniscience, also the attributes of goodness and love, recourse to Him produces an increased feeling of safety ...”

“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment.”

“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 mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

“It [science] has as its highest principle and most coveted aim the solution of the problem to condense all natural phenomena which have been observed and are still to be observed into one simple principle, that allows the computation of past and more especially of future processes from present ones. ...Amid the more or less general laws which mark the achievements of physical science during the course of the last centuries, the principle of least action is perhaps that which, as regards form and content, may claim to come nearest to that ideal final aim of theoretical research.”

“The first constant... is connected with the definition of temperature. If temperature were defined as the mean kinetic energy of a molecule in a perfect gas, which is a minute energy indeed, this constant would have the value ⅔. But in the conventional scale of temperature the constant ...[instead] assumes an extremely small value... intimately connected with the energy of a single molecule... [I]ts accurate determination would lead to the calculation of the mass of a molecule and... associated magnitudes. This constant is frequently termed Boltzmann's constant, although to the best of my knowledge Boltzmann... never introduced it (...he, as appears from... his statements, never believed it would be possible to determine this constant accurately)...”

“I also knew the formula that expresses the energy distribution in the normal spectrum. A theoretical interpretation therefore had to be found at any cost, no matter how high. It was clear to me that classical physics could offer no solution to this problem, and would have meant that all energy would eventually transfer from matter to radiation. ...This approach was opened to me by maintaining the two laws of thermodynamics. The two laws, it seems to me, must be upheld under all circumstances. For the rest, I was ready to sacrifice every one of my previous convictions about physical laws. ...[One] finds that the continuous loss of energy into radiation can be prevented by assuming that energy is forced at the outset to remain together in certain quanta. This was purely a formal assumption and I really did not give it much thought except that no matter what the cost, I must bring about a positive result.”

“Als Physiker, der sein ganzes Leben der nüchternen Wissenschaft, der Erforschung der Materie widmete, bin ich sicher von dem Verdacht frei, für einen Schwarmgeist gehalten zu werden. Und so sage ich nach meinen Erforschungen des Atoms dieses: Es gibt keine Materie an sich. Alle Materie entsteht und besteht nur durch eine Kraft, welche die Atomteilchen in Schwingung bringt und sie zum winzigsten Sonnensystem des Alls zusammenhält. Da es im ganzen Weltall aber weder eine intelligente Kraft noch eine ewige Kraft gibt—es ist der Menschheit nicht gelungen, das heißersehnte Perpetuum mobile zu erfinden—so müssen wir hinter dieser Kraft einen bewußten intelligenten Geist annehmen. Dieser Geist ist der Urgrund aller Materie.Translation: As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles 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. This Spirit is the matrix of all matter.”

“Summing up, we may say that there is hardly one among the great problems, in which modern physics is so rich, to which Einstein has not made an important contribution. That he may sometimes have missed the target in his speculations, as, for example, in his hypothesis of light quanta, cannot really be held too much against him, for it is not possible to introduce fundamentally new ideas, even in the most exact sciences, without occasionally taking risk.”

“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.”

“There is no particular mystery about mathematical analysis; its only distinguishing feature is that it is more trustworthy, more precise, and permits us to proceed farther and along safer lines. Consider, for example, the well-known change of colour from red to white displayed by the light radiated through an aperture made in a heated enclosure, as the temperature increases. From this elementary fact of observation Planck, thanks to mathematical analysis, was able to deduce the existence of light quanta and thence the possibility that all processes of change were discontinuous, and that a body could only rotate with definite speeds. Obviously, commonplace reasoning unaided by mathematics would never have led us even to suspect these extraordinary results.”

“Besides inventing quantum theory, Planck had made another great contribution to science by welcoming and generously supporting the young Albert Einstein. In 1905, when Einstein, then an unknown employee of the Swiss patent office in Bern, sent five revolutionary papers to the physics journal that Planck edited in Berlin, Planck immediately recognized them as works of genius and published them quickly without sending them to referees. He did not agree with all of Einstein’s ideas, but he published all of them. He helped Einstein to move ahead in the academic world, and in 1913 invited him to a full professorship in Berlin. For twenty years Planck and Einstein were friends and colleagues in Berlin, leaders of a scientific community that remained creative and vibrant, in spite of the political and economic disarray that surrounded them. Planck was the rock-solid central figure of German science, with the vision to promote the unorthodox and unpatriotic citizen-of-the-world Einstein.”

“A man to whom it has been given to bless the world with a great creative idea has no need for the praise of posterity. His very achievement has already conferred a higher boon upon him.”

“Max Planck says, The opposition never yields; they just die off. It’s just a question of time. They are dying off.”

“It is clear, however, that the distinguishing mark of the whole development of theoretical chemistry and physics is the elimination of the anthropomorphic elements, especially specific sense-impressions, from the concepts. This process is called by Prof. M. Planck the objectification of the physical system.”

“Planck ...devised his quanta theory, according to which the exchange of energy between the matter and the ether—or rather between ordinary matter and the small resonators whose vibrations furnish the light of incandescent matter—can take place only intermittently. A resonator can not gain energy or lose it in a continuous manner. It can not gain a fraction of a quantum; it must acquire a whole quantum or none at all.”

“Planck was interested in physics, so he sought out the advice of Philipp von Jolly of the University of Munich, which he was to enter. Jolly... told Planck that "in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few unimportant holes." ...Planck replied that he didn't wish to discover new things, only to understand what was already known in the field.”

“So by December 1900 Planck had changed everything in physics and chemistry. The only problem was he didn’t realize it. [...] Although he didn’t realize it, Planck had removed a foundation stone from the edifice of classical physics; it would take another twenty-five years for the entire structure to collapse. However, the immediate reaction was ... nothing. For the next five years neither Planck nor any of the great physicists of the era took up the meaning and extension of Planck’s ideas.”

“Planck had slipped the quantum of action into his not fully consistent reasoning. He had, without wholly realizing it, introduced an essential element of discreteness into the description of nature, an element alien to the theories of mechanics and electromagnetism as they then existed. To the young Einstein, however, the imperfections were all too clear... he was hit with a new paradox: Planck was deriving empirically correct equations from hypotheses that contradicted the principles of physics...”