Max Planck — "The quantum theory is a confirmation of the fact that the world is not a collect…"
The quantum theory is a confirmation of the fact that the world is not a collection of things, but a collection of processes.
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More from Max Planck
"There can be no such thing as a 'pure' science, as science is always influenced by the human mind."
"It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him."
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"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of nature and therefore a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve."
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Reality is not made of fixed objects sitting in space but of ongoing events, interactions, and changes. What we perceive as solid matter is actually continuous activity at the smallest scales. Rather than a universe of static things with properties, we live in a universe of happenings, where existence itself is dynamic. Understanding the world means tracking how things unfold and interact, not cataloging what they are.
Relevance to Max Planck
Planck launched quantum theory in 1900 by proposing that energy comes in discrete packets, overturning classical physics. His discovery forced him to confront a reality where particles behave as probabilistic events rather than tiny billiard balls. Despite being philosophically conservative and religious, Planck accepted that his own equations demanded a processual view of nature, where measurement, interaction, and change are fundamental rather than incidental to what exists.
The era
Planck worked during the early twentieth century, when classical Newtonian physics was collapsing under new experimental evidence. Einstein's relativity, Bohr's atomic model, and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle were dismantling the clockwork universe. Two world wars disrupted German science, and philosophers like Whitehead were independently arguing for process metaphysics. Planck's statement reflects a broader intellectual shift away from Victorian materialism toward a worldview where reality is relational, probabilistic, and fundamentally dynamic.
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