Max Planck Facts
Max Planck Facts
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| Interesting Max Planck Facts: |
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| Max Karl Ludwig Planck was born in Kiel, Germany and was the sixth child. |
| His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all professors. |
| In 1867 he moved to Munich and entered the Maximillian gymnasium. |
| Although he was a gifted musician and composer, he decided to study physics and entered the University of Munich in 1874. |
| In 1877 he studied physics with Hermann von Helmholtz and Gustav Kirchhoff in Berlin. |
| In February 1878 he defended his dissertation "On the second law of thermodynamics" and in June of 1880 he reached the highest level of education when he presented his habilitation thesis, Equilibrium states of isotropic bodies at different temperatures. |
| Between 1880 and 1885 he continued his work on heat theory and in April 1885 he became the associate professor theoretical physics at the University of Kiel. |
| In 1892 he became a full professor at the University of Berlin and in 1909 he was a Ernest Kempton Adams Lecturer in Theoretical Physics at Columbia University. |
| In 1894 he was commissioned to create energy efficient light bulbs and turned his attention to the problem of black-body radiation. |
| In 1897 he published his Treatise on Thermodynamics and proposed a basis for Arrhenius's theory of electrolytic dissociation. |
| On December 14, 1900 he presented a paper to the German Physical Society outlining the Planck postulate which stated that electromagnetic energy could be emitted only in quantized form. |
| This approach is considered the birth of quantum physics and was considered one of the scientific breakthroughs that most influenced modern physics. |
| In recognition of his creation of a new branch of physics he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. |
| In 1905 the Annals of Physics published three of Albert Einstein's papers on special relativity. |
| Planck immediately recognized their significance and worked to extend and publicize the special theory. |
| Planck was appointed Dean of Berlin University and in 1914 created a professorship for Einstein there. |
| In February 1944 his home was completely destroyed by Allied bombs and all of his papers were lost. |
| Planck's home in Berlin was a social center for local scientists, including Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner and they enjoyed playing music together. |
| Among his many awards are the Lorentz Medal in 1927, the Copley Medal in 1929 and the Goethe Prize in 1945. |
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