Planck, Max

(1858-1947)

   physicist; revolutionized science with his quan-tum theory. Born to a legal scholar in Kiel, he took his doctorate in 1879 at Berlin,* where Gustav Kirchhoff animated his interest in radiation. After five years at Munich he was appointed full professor at Kiel. He succeeded Kirchhoff in 1889 and remained at Berlin until he retired in 1926.

   Planck focused his research on thermodynamics, especially the study of ra-diation from black (perfectly absorbing) bodies, and recorded those phenomena inexplicable by Newtonian physics. In 1900 he published his findings in "On the Theory of the Law of Energy Distribution in a Normal Spectrum," which proposed that subatomic energy exists in small bundles or quanta" and that instead of being a uniform commodity, these quanta vary in size based on the frequency of radiation of which they form a part. Key to understanding the internal structure of the atom, the theory questioned the distinction between energy and matter and drove the great advances in physics during the next half-century, including Albert Einstein's* theory of relativity and the development of quantum mechanics.

   Planck received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1918, was elected a foreign member of England's Royal Society in 1926 (the society awarded him its Copley medal in 1929), and became president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society* (KWG) in 1930. His work behind him, he remained in Nazi Germany. Openly opposed to many Nazi policies, he appealed unavailingly to Hitler* to end Jewish per-secution. In 1938 he resigned from the KWG. After World War II his achievements were commemorated when the KWG was renamed the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science.

   REFERENCES:Heilbron, Dilemmas of an Upright Man; Hermann, New Physics; Ma-crakis, Surviving the Swastika.