Max Planck
Originated quantum theory with energy quanta
Most quoted
"The quantum theory is a theory of the elementary quanta of the cosmos and the chaos, the light and the darkness, the good and the evil, the life and the death, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the past, the present, and the future, the here and the now, the everywhere and the always, the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown, the finite and the infinite, the possible and the impossible, the necessary and the contingent, the universal and the particular, the general and the specific, the abstract and the concrete, the simple and the complex, the whole and the part, the one and the many, the same and the different, the identity and the difference, the unity and the multiplicity, the order and the chaos, the harmony and the discord, all things and nothing, being and non-being, existence and non-existence, reality and unreality, truth and falsehood, knowledge and ignorance, wisdom and folly, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, morality and immorality, ethics and unethics, religion and irreligion, spirituality and materialism, God and atheism, the universe and the void."
— from The Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory, 1920
"The quantum theory is a theory of the elementary quanta of the cosmos and the chaos, the light and the darkness, the good and the evil, the life and the death, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the past, the present, and the future, the here and the now, the everywhere and the always, the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown, the finite and the infinite, the possible and the impossible, the necessary and the contingent, the universal and the particular, the general and the specific, the abstract and the concrete, the simple and the complex, the whole and the part, the one and the many, the same and the different, the identity and the difference, the unity and the multiplicity, the order and the chaos, the harmony and the discord."
— from The Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory, 1920
"My original decision to devote myself to science was a direct result of the discovery which has never ceased to fill me with enthusiasm since my early youth - the comprehension of the far from obvious fact that the laws of human reasoning coincide with the laws governing the sequences of the impressions we receive from the world about us; that, therefore, pure reasoning can enable man to gain an insight into the mechanism of the latter. In that sense, it is obvious that science cannot be neutral, and cannot be isolated from life."
— from Scientific Autobiography, 1949
All quotes by Max Planck (661)
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning.
When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination.
A hypothesis is not necessarily untrue because it leads to paradoxes.
The pioneer scientist must have a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by an artistically creative imagination.
There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together.
As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such.
The highest court is in the end one's own conscience and the verdict of others is of no avail against it.
The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry.
It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts.
Theoretical physics is actually philosophy.
For the rationalist, nature is an open book. He believes that the human mind can read it completely and precisely.
The unity of all science consists alone in its method, not in its material.
We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.
A scientist is happy, not in resting on his attainments but in the steady acquisition of fresh knowledge.
It is never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited precision.
The world is not a chaos of events, but a cosmos, ruled by law and order.
The quantum of action h plays a fundamental role in atomic physics.
I am not a philosopher. I am a physicist.
The energy of a resonator can only take on discrete values, it is quantized.
Contemporaries of Max Planck
Other Physicss born within 50 years of Max Planck (1858–1947).