Where does one start to celebrate the achievements of Max Planck (1858-1947)? He along with the immortal “Giants” and fellow Nobel Laureates Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and Neils Bohr (1855-1962) brought about a revolution in modern Physics and ushered in a new era whilst simultaneously doing away with what we refer to as Classical Physics rendering incomplete the work of other “Gods” of Physics, namely: Isaac Newton (1643-1727), James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) and Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906).
Max Planck’s Revolutionary Ideas
As a young researcher, Max was searching for a topic for his PhD thesis and investigating black-body radiation. There were two competing theories at the time that were in use to explain the spectrum observed from the said object, Wein’s displacement law and the Stefan-Boltmann law however, there was an issue in the ultraviolet region causing what has been called affectionately the Ultra-Violet catastrophe, where theory did not agree experiment.
And as my “old friend” Richard Feynman (1918-1988) once so eloquently put it regarding experimental results. “It does not matter how smart you are if your theory does not agree with experiment then it is wrong, in that simple statement is the essence of Science” – R. Feynman. Thus, Max in a state of desperation, proposed a Mathematical theory that would agree numerically with the experiment and in doing so introduced quanta (discrete packets) of energy as opposed to a continuum. These quanta were then further explained by Albert (when explaining the photoelectric effect) and Neils when explaining the spectral lines of hydrogen and its electronic configuration. Balmer (1825-1898) also played a part in explaining hydrogen, but that is for another post. It is perhaps not so well known that Albert and Max used to have evenings together playing musical instruments (Albert on violine and Max on piano).
Bohr-Einstein debates
I wish I had more space to discuss the Bohr-Einstein debates with the immortal passage for posterity Albert: God does not play dice with the universe (here, he was refuting a probabilistic view of the universe). Neils: Stop telling God what to do. And leading to the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox but alas, there is not sufficient space.
Staying with quotes, one of my favourite Einstein sayings is “God is subtle but not malicious”, referring to how his (God’s) laws could be unravelled and found beautiful. Regrettably, I have to stop here for now until next time.
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