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BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT SCIENTISTS
Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig. Biography of a scientist
Directory / Biographies of great scientists
German physicist Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was born on April 23, 1858 in the Prussian city of Kiel, in the family of civil law professor Johann Julius Wilhelm von Planck, professor of civil law, and Emma (nee Patzig) Planck. As a child, the boy learned to play the piano and organ, revealing outstanding musical abilities. In 1867 the family moved to Munich, and there Planck entered the Royal Maximilian Classical Gymnasium, where an excellent teacher of mathematics first aroused in him an interest in the natural and exact sciences. After graduating from the gymnasium in 1874, he initially intended to study classical philology, tried his hand at musical composition, but then gave preference to physics. For three years Planck studied mathematics and physics at the Universities of Munich and for a year at the Universities of Berlin. One of his professors in Munich, the experimental physicist Philipp von Jolly, turned out to be a bad prophet when he advised the young Planck to choose another profession, since, according to him, there was nothing fundamentally new in physics that could be discovered. This view, which was widely held at the time, was influenced by the extraordinary advances that scientists made in the nineteenth century in increasing our knowledge of physical and chemical processes. During his time in Berlin, Planck acquired a broader view of physics through the publications of the eminent physicists Hermann von Helmholtz and Gustav Kirchhoff, as well as the articles of Rudolf Clausius. Acquaintance with their works contributed to the fact that Planck's scientific interests for a long time focused on thermodynamics - a field of physics in which, on the basis of a small number of fundamental laws, the phenomena of heat, mechanical energy and energy transformation are studied. Planck received his doctorate in 1879, having defended his thesis at the University of Munich "On the second law of the mechanical theory of heat" - the second law of thermodynamics, stating that no continuous self-sustaining process can transfer heat from a colder body to a warmer one. A year later, he defended his dissertation "The equilibrium state of isotropic bodies at different temperatures", which earned him the position of junior assistant at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Munich. In 1885 he became an adjunct professor at the University of Kiel, which strengthened his independence, strengthened his financial position and provided more time for scientific research. Planck's work on thermodynamics and its applications to physical chemistry and electrochemistry won him international recognition. In 1888 he became an adjunct professor at the University of Berlin and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics (the post of director was created specifically for him). While working as an assistant professor at the University of Munich, Planck began to compose a course of lectures on theoretical physics. But until 1897 he could not start publishing his lectures. In 1887 he wrote a competitive essay for the prize of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Göttingen. For this essay, Planck received a prize, and the work itself, containing a historical and methodological analysis of the law of conservation of energy, was reprinted five times, from 1887 to 1924. During the same time, Planck published a number of papers on the thermodynamics of physical and chemical processes. The theory of chemical equilibrium of diluted solutions, which he created, gained particular fame. In 1897, the first edition of his lectures on thermodynamics appeared. This classic book was reprinted several times (the last edition was published in 1922) and translated into foreign languages, including Russian. By that time, Planck was already an ordinary professor at the University of Berlin and a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. From 1896, Planck became interested in the measurements made at the State Institute of Physics and Technology in Berlin, as well as in the problems of thermal radiation from bodies. Carrying out his research, Planck drew attention to new physical laws. He established on the basis of experiment the law of thermal radiation of a heated body. At the same time, he encountered the fact that the radiation has a discontinuous character. Planck was able to substantiate his law only with the help of the remarkable assumption that the energy of atomic vibrations is not arbitrary, but can only take on a number of well-defined values. Recent studies have fully confirmed this assumption. It turned out that discontinuity is inherent in any radiation, that light consists of individual portions (quanta) of energy. Planck found that light with an oscillation frequency should be emitted and absorbed in portions, and the energy of each such portion is equal to the oscillation frequency multiplied by a special constant, called Planck's constant. On December 14, 1900, Planck reported to the Berlin Physical Society about his hypothesis and the new radiation formula. The hypothesis introduced by Planck marked the birth of quantum theory, which made a real revolution in physics. Classical physics, in contrast to modern physics, now means "physics before Planck." Planck's monograph Lectures on the Theory of Thermal Radiation was published in 1906. It has been reprinted several times. A Russian translation of the book entitled "The Theory of Thermal Radiation" was published in 1935. His new theory included, in addition to Planck's constant, other fundamental quantities such as the speed of light and a number known as the Boltzmann constant. In 1901, based on experimental data on black body radiation, Planck calculated the value of the Boltzmann constant and, using other known information, obtained the Avogadro number (the number of atoms in one mole of an element). Based on the Avogadro number, Planck was able to find the electric charge of the electron with the highest accuracy. Planck was by no means a revolutionary, and neither he nor other physicists were aware of the deep meaning of the concept of "quantum". For Planck, the quantum was merely a means of deriving a formula that satisfactorily agreed with the blackbody radiation curve. He repeatedly tried to reach agreement within the classical tradition, but without success. At the same time, he noted with pleasure the first successes of quantum theory, which followed almost immediately. The position of quantum theory was strengthened in 1905, when Albert Einstein used the concept of a photon - a quantum of electromagnetic radiation. Einstein suggested that light has a dual nature: it can behave both as a wave and as a particle. In 1907, Einstein further strengthened the position of quantum theory by using the concept of quantum to explain the puzzling discrepancies between theoretical predictions and experimental measurements of the specific heat of bodies. Another confirmation of the potential power of the innovation introduced by Planck came in 1913 from Niels Bohr, who applied quantum theory to the structure of the atom. At the same time, Planck's personal life was marked by tragedy. His first wife, née Maria Merck, whom he married in 1885 and who bore him two sons and two twin daughters, died in 1909. Two years later he married his niece Marga von Hesslin, with whom he also had a son. During the First World War, one of his sons died near Verdun, and in subsequent years both of his daughters died in childbirth. In 1919, Planck was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of his contribution to the development of physics through the discovery of energy quanta". As A. G. Ekstrand, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, stated at the award ceremony, "Planck's theory of radiation is the brightest of the guiding stars of modern physical research, and, as far as one can judge, it will be a long time before the treasures that are were obtained by his genius." In a Nobel lecture given in 1920, Planck summed up his work and acknowledged that "the introduction of the quantum has not yet led to the creation of a genuine quantum theory." In the twenties, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Dirac and others developed quantum mechanics. Planck did not like the new probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, and, like Einstein, he tried to reconcile predictions based only on the principle of probability with classical ideas of causality. His aspirations were not destined to come true: the probabilistic approach withstood. Planck's contribution to modern physics is not limited to the discovery of the quantum and the constant that now bears his name. Einstein's special theory of relativity, published in 1905, made a strong impression on him. The full support given by Planck to the new theory contributed in no small measure to the acceptance of special relativity by physicists. Among his other achievements is his proposed derivation of the Fokker-Planck equation, which describes the behavior of a system of particles under the action of small random impulses. In 1928, at the age of seventy, Planck went into mandatory formal retirement, but did not break his ties with the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Basic Sciences, of which he became president in 1930. And on the threshold of the eighth decade, he continued his research activities. As a man of established views and religious beliefs, and simply as a just person, Planck, after Hitler came to power in 1933, publicly defended Jewish scientists who were expelled from their posts and forced to emigrate. At a scientific conference, he hailed Einstein, who had been anathematized by the Nazis. When Planck, as president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Fundamental Sciences, paid an official visit to Hitler, he took advantage of the occasion to try to end the persecution of Jewish scientists. In response, Hitler launched a tirade against Jews in general. Later, Planck became more reserved and kept silent, although the Nazis were undoubtedly aware of his views. As a patriot who loves his motherland, he could only pray that the German nation would return to normal life. He continued to serve in various German learned societies in the hope of saving at least some small amount of German science and enlightenment from total annihilation. Planck was in for a new shock. The second son from his first marriage was executed in 1944 for participating in a failed plot against Hitler. After his house and personal library were destroyed in an air raid on Berlin, Planck and his wife tried to find refuge on the Rogetz estate near Magdeburg, where they found themselves between the retreating German troops and the advancing Allied forces. In the end, the Plancks were discovered by American units and taken to the then safe Göttingen. Planck was deeply interested in the philosophical problems associated with causality, ethics, and free will, and spoke on these topics in print and before professional and non-professional audiences. Acting pastor (but not priestly) in Berlin, Planck was deeply convinced that science complements religion and teaches truthfulness and respect. Planck believed in the reality of the external world and in the power of reason. It is essential to note this, because a very important stage of his activity took place in a situation of crisis in physics. However, the materialistically inclined Planck firmly opposed the fashionable positivist passions of Mach and Ostwald. "He was a typical German in the best sense of the word," writes George Paget Thomson, a prominent physicist, son of J. J. Thomson, in his book. able to drop all stiffness and turn into a charming person. Planck carried his love of music throughout his life: a great pianist, he often played chamber works with his friend Einstein until he left Germany. Planck was also a keen mountaineer and spent almost every holiday in the Alps. Planck was a member of the German and Austrian Academies of Sciences, as well as the scientific societies and academies of England, Denmark, Ireland, Finland, Greece, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, the Soviet Union, Sweden and the United States. The German Physical Society named its highest award, the Planck Medal, after him, and the scientist himself became the first recipient of this honorary award. In honor of his eightieth birthday, one of the minor planets was named Plankiana, and after the end of World War II, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Fundamental Sciences was renamed the Max Planck Society. Planck died in Göttingen on October 4, 1947, six months before his ninetieth birthday. Only his first and last name and the numerical value of Planck's constant are engraved on his tombstone. Author: Samin D.K.
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