Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (1858-1947)
Max Planck came from an academic family, his father Julius Wilhelm Planck being Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of Kiel at the time of his birth, and both his grandfather and great-grandfather had been professors of theology at Gottingen. His mother, Emma Patzig, was his father's second wife. Both Max's parents were relatively old when he was born, his father being 41 and his mother being 37. He was born into a large family, being his father's sixth child (two of the children were from his first marriage to Mathilde Voigt), and he was brought up in a tradition which greatly respected scholarship, honesty, fairness, and generosity. The values he was given as a young child quickly became the values that he would cherish throughout his life, showing the utmost respect for the institutions of state and church.
Max began his elementary schooling in Kiel. In the spring of 1867 his family moved to Munich when his father was appointed Professor there. This city provided a stimulating environment for the young boy who enjoyed its culture, particularly the music, and loved walking and climbing in the mountains when the family took excursions to Upper Bavaria. He attended secondary school there, entering the famous Maximilian Gymnasium in May 1867. He did well at school, but not brilliantly, usually coming somewhere between third and eighth in his class. Music was perhaps his best subject and he was awarded the school prize in catechism and good conduct almost every year. One might have expected him to excel in mathematics and science, but certainly in his early school years, although he did well, there was no sign of outstanding talent in these subjects. However, towards the end of his school career, his teacher Hermann Muller raised his level of interest in physics and mathematics, and he became deeply impressed by the absolute nature of the law of conservation of energy.
In July 1874, at the age of 16, he passed his school leaving examination with distinction but, having talents for a wide variety of subjects particularly music (he played piano and organ extremely well), he still did not have a clear idea of what he should to study at university. Before he began his studies at the University of Munich he discussed the possibility of a musical career with a musician who told him that if he had to ask the question he'd better study something else.
Planck studied at the Universities of Munich and Berlin, where his teachers included Kirchhoff and Helmholtz, and received his doctorate of philosophy at Munich in 1879. He was Privatdozent in Munich from 1880 to 1885, then Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics at Kiel until 1889, in which year he succeeded Kirchhoff as Professor at Berlin University, where he remained until his retirement in 1926. Afterwards he became President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Promotion of Science, a post he held until 1937. The Prussian Academy of Sciences appointed him a member in 1894 and Permanent Secretary in 1912.
Planck's earliest work was on the subject of thermodynamics, an interest he acquired from his studies under Kirchhoff, whom he greatly admired, and very considerably from reading R. Clausius' publications. He published papers on entropy, on thermoelectric ity and on the theory of dilute solutions.
Planck was a revolutionary in a sense because he became a theoretical physicist at a time when theoretical physics was not yet recognized as a discipline in its own right. Some of the influences that inspired him, was the law of the conservation of energy and the second law of thermodynamics which became the subject of his doctoral dissertation at Munich. These influences played a pivotal role in his subsequent research that eventually led him to discover the quantum of action, now known as Planck's constant h, in 1900. Planck's concept of energy quanta conflicted fundamentally with all past physical theory. He was driven to introduce it strictly by the force of his logic and is considered by some historians as a reluctant revolutionary. It wasn't until years later via the work of such scientists like Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, that the far-reaching consequences of Planck's achievement would be validated. The ultimate validation arrived in 1918 when Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
This was not only Planck's most important work but also marked a turning point in the history of physics. The importance of the discovery, with its far-reaching effect on classical physics, was not appreciated at first. However the evidence for its validi ty gradually became overwhelming as its application accounted for many discrepancies between observed phenomena and classical theory. Among these applications and developments may be mentioned Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect.
Planck's work on the quantum theory, as it came to be known, was published in the Annalen der Physik. His work is summarized in two books Thermodynamik (Thermodynamics) (1897) and Theorie der Warmestrahlung (Theory of heat radiat ion) (1906).
Planck made no other significant discoveries of comparable importance to his 1900 work but remained a vital figure within the scientific community. He contributed to various branches of optics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, physical chemistry, and other fields. He was also the first prominent physicist to endorse Einstein's special theory of relativity. Planck became permanent secretary of the mathematics and physics sections of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1912 and held that position until 1938. He also served as president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society from 1930 to 1937. These offices and others placed Planck in a position of great authority. Yet his authority was less a result of appointments than it was due to the respect he commanded. Planck was considered to be a man of such high personal integrity and wisdom that he was once allowed to speak directly with Adolph Hitler and convey his opinions against Germany's racial policies.
He was elected to Foreign Membership of the Royal Society in 1926, being awarded the Society's Copley Medal in 1928.
He was revered by his colleagues not only for the importance of his discoveries but for his great personal qualities. He was also a gifted pianist and is said to have at one time considered music as a career.
Planck was twice married. Upon his appointment, in 1885, to Associate Professor in his native town Kiel he married a friend of his childhood, Marie Merck, who died in 1909. He remarried her cousin Marga von Hosslin. Three of his children died young, leaving him with two sons.
Planck endured many personal tragedies after the age of 50. In 1909, his first wife died after 22 years of marriage, leaving him with two sons and twin daughters. Planck's oldest son, Karl, was killed in action in 1916, his daughter Margarete died in childbirth in 1917, and another daughter, Emma also died in childbirth in 1919. During World War II, Planck's house in Berlin was completely destroyed by bombs in 1944 and his youngest son, Erwin, was implicated in the attempt made on Hitler's life on July 20, 1944. As a consequence, Erwin died a horrible death at the hands of the Gestapo in 1945. Erwin's death destroyed Planck's will to live. By the end of the war, Planck, his second wife and his son by her, moved to Gottingen where he died on October 4, 1947. Max Planck made brilliant discoveries in Physics which revolutionized the way we think about atomic and subatomic processes. His theoretical work was widely respected by fellow scientists and his tragic life story should have caught Hollywood's attention.