Max Planck a brief biography of the German physicist is set out in this article.

Max Planck short biography

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was born in April 23, 1858 in the town of Kilev. His father was a civil law professor. From a very young age, the boy began to show extraordinary musical abilities, learning to play the piano and organ.

In 1867 his family moved to live in Munich. Here Max Planck enters the Royal Classical Gymnasium, where he develops an interest in the natural and exact sciences.

In 1874, Planck faced a choice - to continue his musical studies or to study physics. He preferred the latter. Max began to study physics and mathematics at the Universities of Berlin and Munich, deepening his knowledge of quantum theory, thermodynamics, probability theory, the theory of heat radiation, history and methodology of physics.

In 1900, a young scientist formulated the law of energy distribution in the spectrum of an absolutely black body, introducing a constant with a functional dimension. Max Planck's formula immediately received experimental confirmation. It was a sensation in science. He created the so-called Planck constant or quantum of action - this is one of the universal constants in physics. And the date of December 14, 1900, the day when Max Planck presented a report in the German Physical Society on the theoretical foundations of the law of radiation, became the date of birth of the new quantum theory.

Also of great importance were Planck's research on the theory of probability. The German scientist was one of the first to understand it and persistently supported it. On this, his scientific achievements continue - in 1906, Max Planck derived an equation for relativistic dynamics, having obtained formulas for determining the momentum and energy of an electron in the course of his research. Thus, the scientists completed the relativization of classical mechanics.

Max Planck was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics in 1919. The list of his achievements included the following - "as a sign of the weight of his merits in the development of physics due to the discovery of energy quanta."

Despite the great achievements in science, Planck's personal life was very tragic. His first wife died early, leaving him 4 children - two daughters and two sons. He married a second time and the fifth child of the scientist was born in marriage - a boy. His eldest son died during the First World War, two daughters died during childbirth. His second son was executed for his part in the assassination attempt on Hitler's Fuhrer.

Max Planck died in Göttingen October 4, 1947 not having lived up to his 90th birthday, only six months.

The outstanding French mathematician A. Poincare wrote: "Planck's quantum theory is, without any doubt, the biggest and most profound revolution that natural philosophy has undergone since the time of Newton."

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was born on April 23, 1858 in the Prussian city of Kiel, in the family of civil law professor Johann Julius Wilhelm von Planck and Emma (nee Patzig) Planck.

In 1867 the family moved to Munich. Planck later recalled: "In the company of my parents and sisters, I happily spent my early years." At the Royal Maximilian Classical Gymnasium, Max studied well. His bright mathematical abilities also showed up early: in middle and high school, it became a habit that he replaced sick mathematics teachers. Planck recalled the lessons of Hermann Muller, "a sociable, insightful, witty man who knew how to explain the meaning of those physical laws about which he told us, the students, using vivid examples."

After graduating from the gymnasium in 1874, he studied mathematics and physics for three years at the Munich University and for a year at the Berlin University. Physics was taught by Professor F. von Jolly. About him, as about others, Planck later said that he learned a lot from them and kept a grateful memory of them, "however, in scientific terms, they were, in essence, limited people." Max decided to complete his education at the University of Berlin. Although here he studied with such luminaries of science as Helmholtz and Kirchhoff, even here he did not receive full satisfaction: he was upset that the lectures of the luminaries were read poorly, especially Helmholtz. He gained much more from his acquaintance with the publications of these eminent physicists. They contributed to the fact that Planck's scientific interests focused for a long time on thermodynamics.

Planck received his doctorate in 1879, having defended his thesis at the University of Munich "On the second law of the mechanical theory of heat" - the second law of thermodynamics, stating that no continuous self-sustaining process can transfer heat from a colder body to a warmer one. A year later, he defended his dissertation "The equilibrium state of isotropic bodies at different temperatures", which earned him the position of junior assistant at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Munich.

As the scientist recalled: “Being a Privatdozent in Munich for many years, I waited in vain for an invitation to a professorship, which, of course, had little chance, since theoretical physics did not yet serve as a separate subject. All the more urgent was the need to advance one way or another in the scientific world.

With this intention, I decided to work out the problem of the essence of energy, put forward by the Goettingen Faculty of Philosophy for a prize in 1887. Even before the end of this work, in the spring of 1885, I was invited as an extraordinary professor of theoretical physics at the University of Kiel. This seemed to me a salvation; the day when the ministerial director Althof invited me to his hotel "Marienbad" and informed me in more detail about the conditions, I considered the happiest in my life. Although I led a carefree life in my parents' house, I still strove for independence ...

Soon I moved to Kiel; my Gottingen work was soon completed there and was crowned with a second prize.

In 1888, Planck became an adjunct professor at the University of Berlin and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics (the post of director was created specifically for him).

In 1896, Planck became interested in the measurements made at the State Institute of Physics and Technology in Berlin. Experimental work on the study of the spectral distribution of the "black body" radiation, carried out here, drew the attention of the scientist to the problem of thermal radiation.

By that time, there were two formulas for describing the radiation of a "black body": one for the short-wavelength part of the spectrum (Wien's formula), the other for the long-wavelength part (Rayleigh's formula). The challenge was to match them.

"Ultraviolet catastrophe" was called by the researchers the discrepancy between the theory of radiation and experiment. A discrepancy that could not be eliminated in any way. A contemporary of the "ultraviolet catastrophe", the physicist Lorentz, sadly remarked: "The equations of classical physics turned out to be unable to explain why the fading furnace does not emit yellow rays along with radiation of large wavelengths ..."

Planck succeeded in "sewing" the Wien and Rayleigh formulas and deriving a formula that accurately describes the radiation spectrum of a black body.

Here is how the scientist writes about it:

“It was at that time that all outstanding physicists turned, both from the experimental and theoretical side, to the problem of energy distribution in the normal spectrum. However, they were looking for it in the direction of representing the intensity of radiation in its dependence on temperature, while I suspected a deeper connection in the dependence of entropy on energy. Since the significance of entropy had not yet found its due recognition, I was not in the least worried about the method I used and could freely and thoroughly carry out my calculations without fear of interference or advance on anyone's part.

Since the second derivative of its entropy with respect to its energy is of particular importance for the irreversibility of the exchange of energy between the oscillator and the radiation excited by it, I calculated the value of this quantity for the case that was then at the center of all interests of the Wien energy distribution, and found a remarkable result that for this case, the reciprocal of such a value, which I have here designated K, is proportional to the energy. This connection is so stunningly simple that for a long time I recognized it as completely general and worked on its theoretical foundation. However, the precariousness of such an understanding was soon revealed before the results of new measurements. It was precisely at the time that for small values ​​of energy, or for short waves, Wien's law was perfectly confirmed later, for large values ​​of energy, or for large waves, Lummer and Pringsheim first established a noticeable deviation, and the perfect deviations carried out by Rubens and F. Kurlbaum measurements with fluorspar and potassium salt revealed a completely different, but again simple relationship, that the value of K is proportional not to energy, but to the square of energy when going to large values ​​of energy and wavelengths.

Thus, two simple boundaries were established for the function by direct experiments: for small energies, the proportionality (of the first degree) of the energy, for large ones, to the square of the energy. It is clear that, just as any principle of energy distribution gives a certain value of K, so any expression leads to a certain law of energy distribution, and the question now is to find an expression that would give the energy distribution established by measurements. But now nothing was more natural than to compose for the general case a quantity in the form of a sum of two terms: one of the first degree, and the other of the second degree of energy, so that for small energies the first term will be decisive, for large energies - the second; at the same time, a new radiation formula was found, which I proposed at a meeting of the Berlin Physical Society on October 19, 1900, and recommended for research.

Subsequent measurements also confirmed the radiation formula, namely, the more accurately, the more subtle methods of measurement were used. However, the measurement formula, if we assume its absolutely exact truth, was in itself only a happily guessed law, having only a formal meaning.

Planck established that light must be emitted and absorbed in portions, and the energy of each such portion is equal to the oscillation frequency multiplied by a special constant, called Planck's constant.

The scientist reports how stubbornly he tried to introduce the quantum of action into the system of classical theory: “But this quantity [the constant h] turned out to be obstinate and resisted all such attempts. As long as it can be considered infinitely small, that is, at higher energies and longer periods, everything was in perfect order. But in the general case here and there a gaping crack appeared, which became the more noticeable the faster the oscillations were considered. The failure of all attempts to bridge this abyss soon left no doubt that the quantum of action plays a fundamental role in atomic physics and that with its appearance a new era in physical science began, because it contains something, until then unheard of, which is called radically transform our physical thinking, built on the concept of the continuity of all causal relationships since the time when Leibniz and Newton created the infinitesimal calculus.

W. Heisenberg conveys the well-known legend of Planck's thoughts in this way: “His son Erwin Planck recalled this time, that he was walking with his father in Grunewald, that Planck excitedly and excitedly talked about the result of his research during the whole walk. He told him something like this: “Either what I am doing now is complete nonsense, or it is, perhaps, the biggest discovery in physics since the time of Newton.”

On December 14, 1900, at a meeting of the German Physical Society, Planck delivered his historic report "On the Theory of Energy Distribution of Normal Spectrum Radiation." He reported on his hypothesis and the new radiation formula. The hypothesis introduced by Planck marked the birth of quantum theory, which made a real revolution in physics. Classical physics, in contrast to modern physics, now means "physics before Planck."

The new theory included, in addition to Planck's constant, other fundamental quantities such as the speed of light and a number known as the Boltzmann constant. In 1901, based on experimental data on black body radiation, Planck calculated the value of the Boltzmann constant and, using other known information, obtained the Avogadro number (the number of atoms in one mole of an element). Based on the Avogadro number, Planck was able to find the electric charge of the electron with the highest accuracy.

The position of quantum theory was strengthened in 1905, when Albert Einstein used the concept of a photon - a quantum of electromagnetic radiation. Two years later, Einstein further strengthened the position of quantum theory, using the concept of quantum to explain the mysterious discrepancies between theory and experimental measurements of the specific heat of bodies. Another confirmation of Planck's theory came in 1913 from Bohr, who applied quantum theory to the structure of the atom.

In 1919, Planck was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of his contribution to the development of physics through the discovery of energy quanta". As stated by A.G. Ekstrand, member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at the award ceremony, "Planck's theory of radiation is the brightest of the guiding stars of modern physical research, and it will be, as far as one can tell, a long time before the treasures that were mined by his genius dry up." In a Nobel lecture given in 1920, Planck summed up his work and acknowledged that "the introduction of the quantum has not yet led to the creation of a genuine quantum theory."

Among his other achievements is, in particular, his proposed derivation of the Fokker-Planck equation, which describes the behavior of a system of particles under the action of small random impulses.

In 1928, at the age of seventy, Planck went into mandatory formal retirement, but did not break his ties with the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Basic Sciences, of which he became president in 1930. And on the threshold of the eighth decade, he continued his research activities.

After Hitler came to power in 1933, Planck repeatedly spoke publicly in defense of Jewish scientists who were expelled from their posts and forced to emigrate. Later, Planck became more reserved and kept silent, although the Nazis were undoubtedly aware of his views. As a patriot who loves his motherland, he could only pray that the German nation would return to normal life. He continued to serve in various German learned societies, in the hope of saving at least some small amount of German science and enlightenment from total annihilation.

Planck lived on the outskirts of Berlin - Grunewald. In his house, located next to a wonderful forest, it was spacious, comfortable, everything had the stamp of noble simplicity. A huge, lovingly and thoughtfully curated library. A music room where the owner treated big and small celebrities with his exquisite playing.

His first wife, née Maria Merck, whom he married in 1885, bore him two sons and two twin daughters. Planck lived happily with her for more than twenty years. She died in 1909. It was a blow from which the scientist could not recover for a long time.

Two years later he married his niece Marga von Hesslin, with whom he also had a son. But since then, misfortune haunted Planck. During the First World War, one of his sons died near Verdun, and in subsequent years both of his daughters died in childbirth. The second son from his first marriage was executed in 1944 for participating in a failed plot against Hitler. The house and personal library of the scientist were destroyed during an air raid on Berlin.

Planck's strength was undermined, more and more suffering was caused by arthritis of the spine. For some time the scientist was in the university clinic, and then moved to one of his nieces.

Planck died in Göttingen on October 4, 1947, six months before his ninetieth birthday. Only his first and last name and the numerical value of Planck's constant are engraved on his tombstone.

In honor of his eightieth birthday, one of the minor planets was named Plankiana, and after the end of World War II, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Fundamental Sciences was renamed the Max Planck Society.

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Prominent German physicist Max Planck made a huge contribution to the development of quantum theory, thereby predetermining the main direction in the development of physics of the 20th century.

From an early age, Planck was brought up in an intellectually developed, educated and well-read family: great-grandfather Gottlieb Planck and grandfather Heinrich Planck were professors of theology, and his father was a professor of law.

The decision to devote his life to physics was not easy for the future scientist: in addition to the natural disciplines, Planck was attracted by music and philosophy. The study of physics took place in Berlin and Munich. After defending his dissertation, the scientist taught in Kiel and Berlin.

Planck's research was mainly devoted to questions of thermodynamics. The scientist became famous after explaining the spectrum of the "absolutely black body", which became the basis for the development of quantum physics. A black body is an object whose radiation depends only on temperature and apparent surface area. Planck, in contrast to the theories of Newton and Leibniz, introduced the concept of the quantum nature of radiation: radiation is emitted and absorbed by quanta with an energy of each quantum equal to E \u003d h ∙ v,where h is Planck's constant. The result of this innovation was to obtain the correct formula for the spectral density of the radiation of a black body heated to a temperature T. Planck's constant also adorned the tombstone of its creator.

Using relativistic methods, Planck made a key discovery - he introduced the concept of the momentum of a photon. Later, this discovery of Planck was extended by de Broglie to all particles and became a fundamental element of quantum physics.

For his contribution to the development of quantum physics, Planck received the Nobel Prize in 1918.

The scientist made a significant contribution to the consideration of classical mechanics as the limiting case of quantum mechanics. Participating in the Solvay congresses, Planck shared his experienced opinion on the problems of modern physics.

Among other achievements of Planck, one cannot fail to note the derivation of the Fokker-Planck equation proposed by him, which describes the behavior of a system of particles under the action of small random impulses.

The fascist regime in Germany became a difficult test for the scientist. On the one hand, Planck accepted all the scientific and cultural achievements of a great country and did not stop working for the benefit of domestic science, on the other hand, the scientist could not come to terms with the policy of extermination pursued by the Reich, and repeatedly tried to convince Hitler of the impossibility of a holocaust. Fascism brought Planck and many personal tragedies: in 1944, the son of a scientist, Erwin, was executed for participating in a conspiracy against Hitler.

Planck was greatly influenced by Einstein's theory of relativity. The scientist fully supported Einstein's concept, which contributed to the acceptance of this theory by physicists.

Planck could be proud of his students, who confidently continued the work of their mentor and made their own discoveries. One of the famous students of the physicist was Moritz Schlick. Schlick's story is interesting because of its balancing on the border of two completely unrelated sciences - physics and philosophy. Schlick's dissertation was defended in physics, and he devoted his entire life to philosophy, forming the ideological center of neopositivism. Schlick was shot at university by his psychopathic student.

Planck's name lives on in many objects and phenomena to this day: in addition to the Planck variable, there are also the Planck formula and the Max Planck Society. One of the craters on the Moon, as well as a satellite of the space agency, bears the name of a scientist.

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Why Max Planck, choosing between physics and music, preferred science, what do his studies and films about kung fu have in common, why did he quarrel with Einstein and how did he suffer from the First and Second World Wars, tells the section "How to get a Nobel Prize".

Nobel Prize in Physics 1918. The wording of the Nobel Committee: "In recognition of his merits in the development of physics through the discovery of energy quanta."

When you write the biographies of Nobel laureates in chronological order, it's amazing how much different information is available about great scientists. In one case, one has to “dig into” journal articles, trying to understand texts in languages ​​other than English and Russian, while in the other, on the contrary, there are so many important facts that one has to arrange a strict competition for them.

The case of the 1918 Nobel laureate in physics clearly falls into the second category. Max Planck had been nominated for the prize every year since 1910 and received the award relatively quickly, despite the fact that much of the physics community, including many of the original prize winners, was far from ready to acknowledge the advent of new physics. Even under the weight of accumulated facts.

Max Planck is a man whose name has now become a household name for German science (remember the Max Planck Society, an analogue of our Academy of Sciences). He was practically deified by German science during his lifetime (the Max Planck medal - the first was received by Planck himself and Einstein - and the Max Planck Institute of Physics appeared during the scientist's lifetime). Our hero was a "man of origin." His father, Wilhelm Planck, represented an ancient noble family, many of whose members were famous figures in science and culture. For example, Max's grandfather Heinrich Ludwig, like his great-grandfather Gottlieb Jakob, taught theology in Göttingen. Mom, Emma Patzig, came from a church family.

Entrance to the building of the Max Planck Society (Munich)

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He was born on April 23, 1858 in Kiel, the capital of Holstein (this is where Emperor Peter III, husband of Catherine II, came from). Germany and Denmark constantly argued for Kiel, even fought for it. The Planck family spent the first nine years of the life of the future great scientist in this city, and Max remembered for the rest of his life the entry of Prussian and Austrian troops into the city in 1864. In general, the wars constantly hit next to Planck - at the closest. In World War I, in 1916, his eldest son Karl died near Verdun, in January 1945 the Nazis hanged his second son Erwin (he was suspected of being involved in the conspiracy of Colonel Stauffenberg). Allied bombings almost killed him during a lecture, filling him up for several hours in a bomb shelter, at the end of the war they ruined his estate, his huge library disappeared somewhere ...

But for now, the year is 1867, and the father of the young Planck receives an invitation from Munich. The position of professor of law at the famous University of Munich turned out to be very tempting, and the family moved to Bavaria. Here Max Planck went to study at the very prestigious Maximilian Gymnasium, where he became the first student.

Maximilian Gymnasium

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And right in the structure of Propp's fairy tale or a film about a kung fu master, it was here that a more experienced and wise adviser appeared, sharing some of his wisdom. Mathematics teacher Hermann Müller became such a fabulous mentor. He discovered a talent for mathematics in a young man and gave him the first lessons in the amazing beauty of the laws of nature: it was from Müller that Planck learned about the law of conservation of energy, which amazed him forever. It must be said that by the time he graduated from school, the outline of the fairy tale continued: he found himself at a crossroads. Of course, there was no stone with inscriptions, but, in addition to obvious abilities in physics and mathematics, Planck showed remarkable musical talent. Perhaps his choice was influenced by the fact that Max Planck, with an excellent voice and a wonderful technique of playing the piano, realized that he was not the best composer.

Planck chose physics and in 1874 entered the University of Munich. True, he did not quit playing, singing and conducting. Physics is physics. It also had to make a choice: in which of the areas of science to go.

Wilhelm Planck sent his son to Professor Philip Jolly. The young man gravitated towards theoretical physics and asked the famous scientist how he likes such a choice. Jolly, trying to dissuade him, told Planck the same phrase, which is now worn out to holes: they say, boy, don’t go into theoretical physics: all the discoveries have already been made here, all the formulas have been derived, there are a few details left to cover, and that’s it. True, this is usually quoted with intonation, they say, the young man heroically rushed to fight against the inertia of physics of that time. But no.

Max Planck in 1878

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The young man was delighted: he was not at all going to make new discoveries. As Planck later explained his decision, he was only going to understand the knowledge already accumulated by physics and clarify inaccuracies. Who knew that in the course of the refinement, the entire building of physics of 1874 would collapse.

Here is how Planck himself wrote about himself as a young man in his Scientific Autobiography: “From my youth, I was inspired to engage in science by the realization of the far from self-evident fact that the laws of our thinking coincide with the laws that take place in the process of receiving impressions from the outside world, and that, therefore, a person can judge these regularities with the help of pure thinking. The essential thing here is that the external world is something independent of us, absolute, which we oppose, and the search for laws relating to this absolute seems to me the most beautiful task in the life of a scientist.

Theoretical physics brought him to Berlin, where he studied under the greats Helmholtz and Kirchhoff. True, Planck was disappointed with lectures on physics at the University of Berlin and sat down to the original work of his teachers. Works on the theory of heat by Rudolf Clausius were soon added to Helmholtz and Kirchhoff. This is how the field of scientific work of the young theorist Max Planck was determined - thermodynamics. He enthusiastically undertakes to "clarify" the details: he reformulates the second law of thermodynamics, writes new definitions of entropy ...

Portrait of Hermann Helmholtz

Hans Schadow/Wikimedia Commons

Here we take the liberty of quoting Max von Laue from 1947: “Today's physics bears a very different imprint than the physics of 1875, when Planck devoted himself to it; and in the greatest of these upheavals, Planck played the first decisive role. It was an amazing set of circumstances. To think, an eighteen-year-old applicant decided to devote himself to a science about which the most competent person he could ask would say that it had little promise. In the process of study, he chooses a branch of this science, which is not at all held in high esteem among related sciences, but within this branch - a special area in which no one is interested. Neither Helmholtz, nor Kirchhoff, nor Clausius, who were closest to this, even read his first works, and yet he continues on his way, following an inner call, until he encounters a problem that many others already tried in vain to decide and for which - as it turns out - it was the path he had chosen that was the best preparation. As a result, he was able, based on measurements of radiation, to discover the law of radiation, which bears his name for all time. He communicated it on 19 October 1900 to the Physical Society in Berlin."

What did Planck discover and what problem did he solve?

Back in the 1860s, one of Planck's teachers, Gustav Kirchhoff, came up with a model object for thought experiments in thermodynamics - an absolutely black body. By definition, a blackbody is a body that absorbs absolutely all the radiation that falls on it. Kirchhoff showed that an absolute body is also the best possible radiator. But it radiates heat energy.

Rudolf Clausius

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In 1896, the 1911 Nobel laureate, Wilhelm Wien, formulated his second law, which explained the shape of the blackbody radiation energy distribution curve based on Maxwell's equations. And this is where the controversy began. Wien's second law turned out to be valid for shortwave radiation. Regardless of Veen, William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh, got his formula, but it "worked" on long wavelengths.

Type of spectral curves given by Planck's and Wien's laws of radiation at various temperatures. It can be seen that the difference between the curves increases in the long-wavelength region

Planck was able, using the model of the simplest linear harmonic resonator, to derive a formula that combined the Wien formula and the Rayleigh formula. On this formula, which later became Planck's formula, he made a report on October 19. However, if Max Planck had done just that, he would hardly have been revered so highly. Yes, after the report in October, several physicists found him and told him: theory is ideally combined with practice. But this only meant that he had successfully chosen a formula that explained a highly specialized task. This was not enough for Planck, and he took up the theoretical justification of the empirically found formula. On December 14 of the same year, he again spoke at the Physical Society and made a report from which it follows: the energy of a completely black body should be emitted in portions. Quantum.

General mechanics.

The reader is offered a book by the outstanding German scientist, Nobel laureate in physics Max Planck (1858-1947), which is a textbook on general mechanics.

The author considers a separate material point, dividing all mechanics into two parts: the mechanics of a material point and the mechanics of a system of material points. The work is distinguished by the depth and clarity of presentation of the material and occupies an important place in the scientific heritage of the scientist.

Introduction to theoretical physics. Volume 2

Mechanics of deformable bodies.

This book, which deals with the mechanics of an elastic deformable body, is a continuation of the course "General Mechanics" by the outstanding German physicist Max Planck.

The author, with the usual skill, concisely and clearly introduces the reader to the circle of research on the theory of elasticity, hydrodynamics and aerodynamics and the theory of vortex motions. In the view of the reader of this book, the mechanics of deformable bodies should arise as a natural continuation of general mechanics, conditioned by internal necessity, and, above all, as a series of closely related, logically substantiated concepts. This will make it possible not only to study more detailed courses and specialized literature with full understanding, but also to carry out independent, deeper research.

Introduction to theoretical physics. Volume 3

Theory of electricity and magnetism.

This book, written by the outstanding German scientist, the founder of quantum mechanics, Max Planck, contains a presentation of electrical and magnetic phenomena. The work is one of the monographs on the main sections of theoretical physics, which occupies an important place in Planck's scientific heritage.

The material of the book is distinguished by the depth and clarity of description, thanks to which it has not lost its significance even today.

Introduction to theoretical physics. Volume 4

Optics.

In the book of the outstanding German physicist Max Planck, much attention is paid to the systematic presentation and development of the main provisions of theoretical optics, and their connections with other departments of physics are presented.

In the first two parts of the work, the author considers matter as a continuous medium with continuously changing properties. In the third part, when describing the dispersion, the atomistic method of consideration is introduced. The author also outlines a natural transition to quantum mechanics based on classical theory with the help of an appropriate generalization.

Introduction to theoretical physics. Volume 5

Theory of heat.

This book is the fifth and final volume of Max Planck's Introduction to Theoretical Physics.

In the first two parts of the work of the outstanding German physicist, classical thermodynamics and the foundations of the theory of heat conduction are presented. Moreover, thermal conductivity is considered by the author as the simplest example of irreversible processes. Thanks to this point of view, the transition from thermodynamics to the theory of heat conduction turns out to be clear and natural in Planck's presentation.

The third part of the book is entirely devoted to the phenomena of thermal radiation. In subsequent chapters, the author sets out the foundations of atomistics and quantum theory, classical and quantum statistics.

Selected writings

This edition of selected works by Max Planck, one of the founders of modern physics, includes articles on thermodynamics, statistical physics, quantum theory, special relativity, and general questions of physics and chemistry.

The book is of interest to physicists, chemists, historians of physics and chemistry.

Quantum theory. Revolution in the microcosm

Max Planck was often called a revolutionary, although he was against it.

In 1900, the scientist put forward the idea that energy is not emitted continuously, but in the form of portions, or quanta. The echo of this hypothesis, which overturned the prevailing ideas, was the development of quantum mechanics, a discipline that, together with the theory of relativity, underlies the modern view of the Universe.

Quantum mechanics considers the microscopic world, and some of its postulates are so amazing that Planck himself more than once admitted that he did not keep up with the consequences of his discoveries. A teacher of teachers, for decades he stood at the helm of German science, managing to keep a spark of reason in the gloomy period of Nazism.

The principle of conservation of energy

M. Planck's book "The Principle of Conservation of Energy" is devoted to the history and justification of the law of conservation and transformation of energy, this most important law of nature for the justification of materialism.

The book has been published four times in German; from the last edition (1921) and the present translation has been made. The first part was translated by R.Ya. Steinman, the other two - S.G. Suvorov.

Translators did not want to deviate from the original style of the author when translating, but in some cases, when individual phrases of the original were extended to a whole page, they were still forced to “facilitate” this style.

Some of Planck's references to specific physical research are out of date. Therefore, in the 1908 edition, Planck made a number of additional remarks. Such remarks, though not of a principled nature, could be multiplied somewhat. Planck left the third and fourth editions unchanged from the second. The translators also considered it possible to confine themselves to the additions of the author himself to the second edition.

More significant is the absence in the reprints of the history of the law of conservation and transformation of energy over the past fifty years, which are very important for its development. The translators, of course, could not exhaust this story with separate remarks; it requires independent research, which is beyond the scope of this work. However, some very significant moments of the subsequent development of the law, namely, the struggle of various trends in physics around the assessment of the meaning of the law and its interpretation, are highlighted in the article by S.G. Suvorov. In it, the reader will also find an assessment of the book by M. Planck.