Planck Quotes & Sayings

When I began my physical studies [in Munich in 1874] and sought advice from my venerable teacher Philipp von Jolly ... he portrayed to me physics as a highly developed, almost fully matured science ... Possibly in one or another nook there would perhaps be a dust particle or a small bubble to be examined and classified, but the system as a whole stood there fairly secured, and theoretical physics approached visibly that degree of perfection which, for example, geometry has had already for centuries. — Max Planck

Indeed, as string theory was understood better, it became clear that the gauge interactions naturally emerged from it. But even more than this, during their period of exile from the mainstream, the string theorists realized that their theory naturally gave rise to an interaction that had all of the hallmarks of the gravitational force. In order to get the force to come out with the right strength, all they had to do was fix the length of the string to be about the Planck length. Thus, string theory had the potential to unify all of physics in a simple framework, in which all phenomena arise from the motion and vibrations of fundamental one-dimensional strings. — Lee Smolin

The man who cannot occasionally imagine events and conditions of existence that are contrary to the causal principle as he knows it will never enrich his science by the addition of a new idea. — Max Planck

Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never relaxing crusade against skepticism and against dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition ... [and therefore] 'On to God! — Max Planck

String theory?[pause] It closed the conceptual gulp between relativity and quantum mechanics. It postulates that subatomic particles are not points, but strings, about one planck length long. The rate at which strings vibrate can generate the properties of all known particles. Huh? How did I know that? — Willie Garson

Ego is the immediate dictate of human consciousness. — Max Planck

Expressed in Planck units, the temperature T of a black hole is inversely proportional to its mass, m. This is a third law, Hawking's law: T = k/m. The constant k is very small in normal units. As a result, astrophysical black holes have temperatures of a very small fractionnof a degree. — Lee Smolin

It turns out that inheritance has surprisingly little influence on longevity. James Vaupel, of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, in Rostock, Germany, notes that only 3 percent of how long you'll live, compared with the average, is explained by your parents' longevity; by contrast, up to 90 percent of how tall you are is explained by your parents' height. Even genetically identical twins vary widely in life span: the typical gap is more than fifteen years. If our genes explain less than we imagined, the classical wear-and-tear model may explain more than we knew. — Atul Gawande

The power of the deductive network produced in physics has been illustrated in a delightful article by Victor F. Weisskopf. He begins by taking the magnitudes of six physical constants known by measurement: the mass of the proton, the mass and electric charge of the electron, the light velocity, Newton's gravitational constant, and the quantum of action of Planck.

He adds three of four fundamental laws (e.g., de Broglie's relations connecting particle momentum and particle energy with the wavelength and frequency, and the Pauli exclusion principle), and shows that one can then derive a host of different, apparently quite unconnected, facts that happen to be known to us by observation separately .... — Gerald Holton

Two observations take us across the finish line. The Second Law ensures that entropy increases throughout the entire process, and so the information hidden within the hard drives, Kindles, old-fashioned paper books, and everything else you packed into the region is less than that hidden in the black hole. From the results of Bekenstein and Hawking, we know that the black hole's hidden information content is given by the area of its event horizon. Moreover, because you were careful not to overspill the original region of space, the black hole's event horizon coincides with the region's boundary, so the black hole's entropy equals the area of this surrounding surface. We thus learn an important lesson. The amount of information contained within a region of space, stored in any objects of any design, is always less than the area of the surface that surrounds the region (measured in square Planck units). — Brian Greene

The Theory of Relativity confers an absolute meaning on a magnitude which in classical theory has only a relative significance: the velocity of light. The velocity of light is to the Theory of Relativity as the elementary quantum of action is to the Quantum Theory: it is its absolute core. — Max Planck

We are in a position similar to that of a mountaineer who is wandering over uncharted spaces, and never knows whether behind the peak which he sees in front of him and which he tries to scale there may not be another peak still beyond and higher up. — Max Planck

New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment. — Max Planck

Many studies of research scientists have shown that achievement (at least below the genius level of an Einstein, Bohr, or a Planck) depends less on ability in doing research than on the courage to go after opportunity. — Peter Drucker

The founders and grand theorists of modern (quantum and relativity) physics: Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Bohr, Eddington, Pauli, de Broglie, Jeans, and Planck. — Ken Wilber

On the other side, Church spokesmen could scarcely become enthusiastic about Planck's deism, which omitted all reference to established religions and had no more doctrinal content than Einstein's Judaism. — J.L. Heilbron

conformed to the principle of least action, a foundation of physics that holds that light or any object moving between two points should follow the easiest path.3 Planck's paper not only contributed to the development of relativity theory; it also helped to legitimize it among other physicists. — Walter Isaacson

Max Planck, surveying his own career in his Scientific Autobiography, sadly remarked that "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."8 — Thomas S. Kuhn

Fine Structure Constant: Fundamental numerical constant of atomic physics and quantum electrodynamics, defined as the square of the charge of the electron divided by the product of Planck's constant and the speed of light. — Steven Weinberg

A new truth always has to conend with many difficulties. If it were not so, it would have been discovered much sooner. — Max Planck

Halyard yawned, and was annoyed to think that Lynn, who had just read "order out of chaos" as "order out of koze," made three times as much money as he did. Lynn, or, as Halyard preferred to think of him, Planck, hadn't even finished high school, and Halyard had known smarter Irish setters. Yet, here the son-of-a-bitch was, elected to more than a hundred thousand bucks a year! — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

As physicist Max Planck once observed, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die. — Adam M. Grant

This phenomenon suggests nineteenth-century German polymath Adolf Bastian's theory of Elementargedanke, literally "elementary thoughts of humankind," which so influenced physicists like Planck, Pauli, and Einstein, indeed many of those in the German school of physics, which was dominant in the early decades of the twentieth century leading up to World War II, as well as anthropologists like Franz Boas (the father of American anthropology) and physicians such as Jung. The idea of the collective unconscious (Jung's term for the nonlocal domain) was in the way he expressed it. It proposes a worldview in which all manifestations of consciousness, regardless of the complexity of their physical forms, are part of a network of life. A network in which each component both informs and influences as it is informed and influenced. It — Stephan A. Schwartz

Science progresses not by convincing the adherents of old theories that they are wrong, but by allowing enough time to pass so that a new generation can arise unencumbered by the old errors. — Max Planck

As the great physicist Max Planck put it, scientists must have a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by an artistically creative imagination. — Robert Greene

Years after Planck's death in 1947, at the age of 89, his former student and colleague James Franck recalled watching his hopeless struggle 'to avoid quantum theory, whether he could not at least make the influence of quantum theory as little as it could possibly be'.It was clear to Franck that Planck 'was a revolutionary against his own will' who 'finally came to the conclusion, "It doesn't help. We have to live with quantum theory. And believe me, it will expand."' It was a fitting epitaph for a reluctant revolutionary. — Manjit Kumar

Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view. — Max Planck

The goal is nothing other than the coherence and completeness of the system not only in respect of all details, but also in respect of all physicists of all places, all times, all peoples, and all cultures. — Max Planck

(The string is extremely tiny, at the Planck length of 10 ^-33 cm, a billion billion times smaller than a proton, so all subatomic particles appear pointlike.)

If we were to pluck this string, the vibration would change; the electron might turn into a neutrino. Pluck it again and it might turn into a quark. In fact, if you plucked it hard enough, it could turn into any of the known subatomic particles.

Strings can interact by splitting and rejoining, thus creating the interactions we see among electrons and protons in atoms. In this way, through string theory, we can reproduce all the laws of atomic and nuclear physics. The "melodies" that can be written on strings correspond to the laws of chemistry. The universe can now be viewed as a vast symphony of strings. — Michio Kaku

Science enhances the moral value of life, because it furthers a love of truth and reverence - love of truth displaying itself in the constant endeavor to arrive at a more exact knowledge of the world of mind and matter around us, and reverence, because every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being. — Max Planck

Truth never triumphs-its opponents just die out, — Max Planck

No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days. — Max Planck

Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.' — Max Planck

Science advances funeral by funeral — Max Planck

Before an experiment can be performed, it must be planned - the question to nature must be formulated before being posed. Before the result of a measurement can be used, it must be interpreted - nature's answer must be understood properly. These two tasks are those of the theorist, who finds himself always more and more dependent on the tools of abstract mathematics. Of course, this does not mean that the experimenter does not also engage in theoretical deliberations. The foremost classical example of a major achievement produced by such a division of labor is the creation of spectrum analysis by the joint efforts of Robert Bunsen, the experimenter, and Gustav Kirchhoff, the theorist. Since then, spectrum analysis has been continually developing and bearing ever richer fruit. — Max Planck

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. — Max Planck

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.
We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. — Max Planck

Max Planck once remarked, Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature. And it is because in the last analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve. — Michio Kaku

You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of his being ... Such is the privilege of living after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick and their colleagues. — Richard Dawkins

The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry. — Max Planck

Both religion and natural science require a belief in God for their activities, to the former He is the starting point, and to the latter the goal of every thought process. To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view. — Max Planck

It is never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited precision. — Max Planck

Scientific work will never stop, and it would be terrible if it did. If there were no more problems, you would put your hands in your pockets and your head on a pillow and would work no more. In science rest is stagnation, rest is death. — Max Planck

A new scientific truth is usually not propagated in such a way that opponents become convinced and discard their previous views. No, the adversaries eventually die off, and the upcoming generation is familiarised anew with the truth. — Max Planck

Of course, physics prevents us from dividing things beyond a certain limit, determined by what is called the Planck constant. This is because, according to physicists, it is actually impossible to measure a distance smaller than 10-34m without creating a black hole that would swallow up the measuring device. — Marcus Du Sautoy

There is a real world independent of our senses; the laws of nature were not invented by man, but forced on him by the natural world. They are the expression of a natural world order. — Max Planck

It is a remarkable fact that the second law of thermodynamics has played in the history of science a fundamental role far beyond its original scope. Suffice it to mention Boltzmann's work on kinetic theory, Planck's discovery of quantum theory or Einstein's theory of spontaneous emission, which were all based on the second law of thermodynamics. — Ilya Prigogine

What seems today inconceivable will appear one day, from a higher stand point, quite simple and harmonious. — Max Planck

The highest court is in the end one's own conscience and conviction - that goes for you and for Einstein and every other physicist - and before any science there is first of all belief. — Max Planck

If E is considered to be a continuously divisible quantity, this distribution is possible in infinitely many ways. We consider, however-this is the most essential point of the whole calculation-E to be composed of a well-defined number of equal parts and use thereto the constant of nature h = 6.55 x10-27 erg sec. This constant multiplied by the common frequency ? of the resonators gives us the energy element E in erg, and dividing E by E we get the number P of energy elements which must be divided over the N resonators. — Max Planck

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. — Max Planck

Lying there, I thought of my own culture, of the assembly of books in the library at Alexandria; of the deliberations of Darwin and Mendel in their respective gardens; of the architectural conception of the cathedral at Chartres; of Bach's cello suites, the philosophy of Schweitzer, the insights of Planck and Dirac. Have we come all this way, I wondered, only to be dismantled by our own technologies, to be betrayed by political connivance or the impersonal avarice of a corporation? — Barry Lopez

The worth of a new idea is invariably determined, not by the degree of its intuitiveness-which incidentally, is to a major extent a matter of experience and habit-but by the scope and accuracy of the individual laws to the discovery of which it eventually leads. — Max Planck

Nature prefers the more probable states to the less probable because in nature processes take place in the direction of greater probability. Heat goes from a body at higher temperature to a body at lower temperature because the state of equal temperature distribution is more probable than a state of unequal temperature distribution. — Max Planck

After earning my Ph.D., I stayed at the Max-Planck Institute as a postdoc, working on laser excitation of Rydberg states of triatomic hydrogen and helium hydride. I also succeeded in analyzing all the emission spectra of helium hydride, which I had discovered during my Ph.D. — Wolfgang Ketterle

Planck ... and Bohr ... have invented systems containing electrons of which the motion produces no effect upon external charges ... [N]ot only [is this] inconsistent with the accepted laws of electromagnetism, but I may add, is logically objectionable, for that state of motion which produces no physical effect whatsoever may better be called a state of rest. — G.N.Lewis

This is one of man's oldest riddles. How can the independence of human volition be harmonized with the fact that we are integral parts of a universe which is subject to the rigid order of nature's laws? — Max Planck

For simple black holes, which do not rotate and have no electric charge, the values of the temperature and entropy can be expressed very simply. The area of the horizon of a simple black hole is proportional to the square of its mass, in Planck units. The entropy S is proportional to this quantity. In terms of Planck units, we have the simple formula S = .25 A / h G. Where A is the area of the horizon, and G is the gravitational constant. — Lee Smolin

The Planck satellite may detect the imprint of the gravitational waves predicted by inflation. This would be quantum gravity written across the sky. — Stephen Hawking

In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were [someone to] drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside. Our Planck is one of them, and that is why we love him. — Albert Einstein

An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer. — Max Planck

There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. — Max Planck

[Max Planck] was one of the finest people I have ever known ... but he really didn't understand physics, [because] during the eclipse of 1919 he stayed up all night to see if it would confirm the bending of light by the gravitational field. If he had really understood [general relativity], he would have gone to bed the way I did — Albert Einstein

Experimenters are the shock troops of science. — Max Planck

Planck length and Planck time had always looked a bit too much like pixel dimensions for comfort. — Peter Watts

What led me to my science and what fascinated me from a young age was the, by no means self-evident, fact that our laws of thought agree with the regularities found in the succession of impressions we receive from the external world, that it is thus possible for the human being to gain enlightenment regarding these regularities by means of pure thought — Max Planck

A scientist is happy, not in resting on his attainments but in the steady acquisition of fresh knowledge. — Max Planck

I am certain that our Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart will increasingly be an international meeting place open to scientists of all countries. — Klaus Von Klitzing

The whole strenuous intellectual work of an industrious research worker would appear, after all, in vain and hopeless, if he were not occasionally through some striking facts to find that he had, at the end of all his criss-cross journeys, at last accomplished at least one step which was conclusively nearer the truth. — Max Planck

Farsighted theologians are now working to mine the eternal metal from the teachings of Jesus and to forge it for all time. — Max Planck

It was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls. — Max Planck

The longing to behold this pre-established harmony [of phenomena and theoretical principles] is the source of the inexhaustible patience and perseverance with which Planck has devoted himself ... The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart. — Albert Einstein

Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it. — Max Planck

There is no matter as such - mind is the matrix of all matter. — Max Planck

Thus, the photons which constitute a ray of light behave like intelligent human beings: out of all possible curves they always select the one which will take them most quickly to their goal. — Max Planck

Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination. — Max Planck

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. — Max Planck

An indispensable hypothesis, even though still far from being a guarantee of success, is however the pursuit of a specific aim, whose lighted beacon, even by initial failures, is not betrayed. — Max Planck

Religion belongs to the realm that is inviolable before the law of causation and therefore closed to science. — Max Planck

Science ... means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an aim which the poetic intuition may apprehend, but the intellect can never fully grasp. — Max Planck

To make a discovery is not necessarily the same as to understand a discovery. Not only Planck but also other physicists were intially at a loss as to what the proper context of the new postulate really was. — Abraham Pais

Hitherto the principle of causality was universally accepted as an indispensable postulate of scientific research, but now we are told by some physicists that it must be thrown overboard. The fact that such an extraordinary opinion should be expressed in responsible scientific quarters is widely taken to be significant of the all-round unreliability of human knowledge. This indeed is a very serious situation. — Max Planck

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. — Max Planck

I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as the noblest and most worth while task of science. — Max Planck

The spectral density of black body radiation ... represents something absolute, and since the search for the absolutes has always appeared to me to be the highest form of research, I applied myself vigorously to its solution. — Max Planck

I think more like a quantum
Buddhist, in that there is a universal proto-conscious mind which we
access, and can influence us. But it actually exists at the
funda-mental level of the universe, at the Planck scale. — Stuart Hameroff

People complain that our generation has no philosophers. They are wrong. They now sit in another faculty. Their names are Max Planck and Albert Einstein. Upon appointment as the first president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, Berlin, formed for the advancement of science. — Adolf Von Harnack

According to quantum mechanics, at the Planck scale length, instead of a gradually undulating geometry, there should be wild fluctuations and loops and handles of spacetime branching off, the sort of topography that the futuristic Ike encountered. General relativity cannot be used in such untamed territory. — Lisa Randall

Those [scientists] who dislike entertaining contradictory thoughts are unlikely to enrich their science with new ideas. — Max Planck

Science advances one funeral at a time. — Max Planck

[I do not believe] in a personal God, let alone a Christian God. — Max Planck

The entire world we apprehend through our senses is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature. — Max Planck

In all my research I have never come across matter. To me the term matter implies a bundle of energy which is given form by an intelligent spirit. — Max Planck

The fine structure constant is undoubtedly the most fundamental pure (dimensionless) number in all of physics. It relates the basic constants of electromagnetism (the charge of the electron), relativity (the speed of light), and quantum mechanics (Planck's constant). — David J. Griffiths

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. — Max Planck

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out. — Max Planck

We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future. — Max Planck

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. — Max Planck

We cannot rest and sit down lest we rust and decay. Health is maintained only through work. And as it is with all life so it is with science. We are always struggling from the relative to the absolute. — Max Planck

Even if we choose to use the nonstandard notion of distance and thereby describe the radius as being shorter than the Planck length, the physics we encounter - as discussed in previous sections - will be identical to that of a universe in which the radius, in the conventional sense of distance, is larger than the Planck length — Brian Greene