1. MAX KARL ERNST LUDWIG PLANCK
April 23, 1858 in Kiel, Germany-
October 4, 1947 at Göttingen
2. QUANTUM THEORY
The Wave Structure of Matter (WSM) & Standing
Wave Interactions (which occur at discrete
Frequencies f) explains Quantum Energy States of
Matter & Light 'Quanta' (E=hf)
discovered by Max Planck in1900
3. “SCIENCE CANNOT SOLVE THE ULTIMATE MYSTERY
OF NATURE. AND THAT IS BECAUSE, IN THE LAST
ANALYSIS, WE OURSELVES ARE A PART OF THE
MYSTERY THAT WE ARE TRYING TO SOLVE.”
5. LIFE
Twice married,
Married his childhood friend, Marie Merck, who died
in 1909
Remarried her cousin Marga von Hösslin
Three of his children died young, leaving him with
two sons
He suffered a personal tragedy when one of them
was executed for his part in an unsuccessful
attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1944.
6. EDUCATION
studied at the Universities of Munich and Berlin,
received his doctorate of philosophy at Munich in
1879
7. POSITIONS
He was Privatdozent in Munich from 1880 to 1885
He was Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics
at Kiel until 1889, in which year he succeeded
Kirchhoff as Professor at Berlin University, where
he remained until his retirement in 1926.
Afterwards he became President of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Society for the Promotion of Science, a
post he held until 1937.
The Prussian Academy of Sciences appointed him
a member in 1894 and Permanent Secretary in
1912.
8. CONTRIBUTIONS
Quantum theory (published in the Annalen der
Physik)
Deduced the relationship between the energy and
the frequency of radiation
Planck's constant: The energy for a resonator of
frequency v is hv where h is a universal constant
9. AWARDS
Pour le Merite for Science and Arts 1915
Chancellor 1930
Nobel Prize in Physics1918
Elected Foreign Membership of the Royal
Society1926
Lorentz Medal 1927
Franklin Medal 1927
Alderschild des Deutschen Reiches 1928
Society's Copley Medal 1928
Max Planck Medal 1929
Copley Medal 1929
