Introduction
Oh God. Without this guy... I don't know. I don't even want to try to imagine what would happen! Why? Because Max Planck was a physicist who originated the theory that is both weird and beautiful, but first of all without it you wouldn't have been able to use this tool that you are using to read this post. I am talking, of course, about quantum mechanics. There must be a reason that one of the fundamental physical constants is Planck's constant, right? In this part of IQ overload series, you will learn why Max Planck was so crucial for quantum mechanics and how he achieved this. Let's go then!
image credits: Wikipedia
His life
Early years
Max Planck was born in Kiel on 23 April 1858. He came from traditional family. His father was professor of law at the University of Kiel. When Planck was 9, he and his family moved to Munich, where young genius entered reputable Königliches Maximiliansgymnasium. During school years Max Planck has not only proved his maths and physics skills, but also he was distinguished in music and classical philology. However, after graduation, when Planck was 17, he decided to stick to physics. Why? Some people say it happened thanks to his teacher - Hermann Müller - who stimulated his interests in physics. But genius had never thrown music away, it was a part of his life to the end.
During time Planck spent at universities he realized that he should become a theoretical physicist. At this time it wasn't a popular physics field - most of the scientists thought that almost everything was already discovered (oh, they were so wrong). Our founding father of quantum mechanics got his Ph.D. in the year of Einstein birth - in 1879. What is worth to mention is that he was only 21! Soon after that he started his lecturer carrier and then became professor.
Qunatum theory founding father
Till 1900 scientists believed that light is a wave. In some cases this thinking was right, light behaves like a wave in certain situations, but it didn't explain some weird phenomenon like blackbody radiation. During his research on this blackbody radiation Max Planck proposed that energy of radiation can take on only a discrete values (quanta) so it is quantized. It was a revolution and quantum mechanics begins with this proposal.
So we can say that Max Planck was the one who initialized quantum mechanics. Also, research on blackbody led him to the discovery of new fundamental physical constant - h that is a quantum of action used in a lot of equations in quantum mechanics. How? As I said - Planck said that energy of electromagnetic radiation can have only a certain values:
E=hf
where h is Planck's constant and f is a frequency of radiation wave.
In 1905, independently of Planck, Einstein proposed (when he was describing the photoelectric effect) that light itself consists of quanta (later called photons).
Theory of relativity
When Albert Einstein published his well-known special theory of relativity, Max Planck was one of the first scientists who recognized the significance of this theory. As he had a great reputation in the physics world, Einstein's theory was soon accepted by most of the scientists. Who knows what would happen without Planck? Maybe Einstein's great theory would have to wait for a few years to be widely accepted?
Nobel Prize
Max Planck was another scientist from 5th Solvay Conference who received Nobel Prize. It happened in 1918. He received it "for the services he rendered to the advancement of physics by his discovery of energy quanta".
Later years
Max Planck spent most of his life in Berlin, where he was a president of Kaiser Wilhelm Society (later called Max Planck Society). Also, he became permanent secretary of the mathematics and physics sections of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
When Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics was invented, Max Planck with some great scientists such as Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrodinger wasn't happy with that. They didn't believe in indeterministic, statistical worldview.
Max Planck died in Göttingen in 1947.
image credits: Wikimedia
Summary
Max Planck was a founding father of quantum mechanics. His discoveries such as quanta were revolutionary. Most of his life he spent in Berlin, where he was leading some prestige organizations. He was also one of the first scientists who discoverd that Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity was great and true.
References:
- more about Max Planck: nobelprize.org, Britannica and Wikipedia
- more about quanta: Wikipedia
0. IQ overload: the story of one photo
1. IQ overload: Maria Skłodowska-Curie
2. IQ overload: Niels Bohr
3. IQ overload: Albert Einstein
4. IQ overload: Werner Heisenberg
5. IQ overload: Erwin Schrödinger
6. IQ overload: Max Planck (this post)
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