MAX PLANCK

MAX PLANCK

The man inside physicist

Nicla Barberi

Biographical hints

Max Karl Ernest Ludwig Planck (Kiel 1858-Gottingen 1947) was, from high school, considered a brilliant mind. He moved to Monaco with his family, where he enrolled at university and here he developed a passion for mathematics and physics. At 28 years he was appointed professor of theoretical physics at the University of Kiel and later that of Berlin. His life was disturbed by the death of his daughters Emma and Grete at a young age and of eldest son during World War I, while Erwin, the last child born to his first wife Marie Merck (died 1909), was hanged by the Nazis for being involved in Operation Valkyrie against Hitler. Hermann only, had by his second wife Marga von Hosslin, the survived.. Because of the importance he attached to religion launched strong criticisms of atheists. When it was now old man lost his home in an air raid and eventually of the war he was brought back to Göttingen where he died in 1947

TIMELINE

1933

1914

Meeting with Hitler

1900

First world war

1858

1918

1901

1947

Birth of Planck

Quantum theory

Nobel prize

Planck's Death

PLANCK DURING WORLD CONFLICTS :

First World War

family losses

end of the first world war

NOBEL PRIZE 1918

attributed to him for the foundation and development of elementary quantum theory. Planck's works that earned him the Nobel Prize dated back to 1900, and by the time of the awarding of the Prize many of the implications and consequences of Planck's contribution had already been enucleated by several eminent physicists of the time, including, of course, Albert Einstein, who with his 1905 work on the photoelectric effect he decisively contributed to the clamor surrounding Max Planck's discovery, proving its value well beyond Planck's own studies on the specific problem of black-body radiation.

+ INFO

QUOTE I

Second world war:

the beginning of the war

In 1933, Max is 74 years old and slowly sees the expulsions of friends and colleagues from their posts and from the country. Despite everything he continues to work and tries to ask some scientists to stay with him in Germany, confident that the situation would not last long. Max in those years leads the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) and tries to avoid open conflict with the Nazi regime, but he doesn't always succeed.

In 1936 Max ends his mandate as president of the KWG and the Nazis force him not to run again. The more time passes, the more difficult the climate becomes and even some of his colleagues attack him because he continues to teach the theories of Einstein, who is also a Jew. At the end of 1938, when Max was 80 years old, the Prussian Academy of Sciences (of which he had been Secretary since 1912) was occupied by the Nazis, so he resigned from the presidency. Then the Second World War began and he, together with his second wife Marga von Hoesslin (whom he had married in 1911) went to live in the countryside to protect themselves.

Relations with the Nazis

Max Planck is considered a "grey" scientist for regarding relations with the Nazis. With the advent of the Nazis in power, the climate in Germanyit became quite complicated for the Jews. He didn't enter never actively in conflict with German policies, indeed he expressed disappointment with Einstein's positions, which in the interviews he regretted the situation in Germany.

He was a conservative traditionalist, with a strong civic sense also towards the Nazi state, and he preferred to opt for compromise and wait, convinced that the most hateful aspects of Nazism would have subsided col time. A choice that was not accepted by himself son, who was killed by the Nazis for participating in the1944 conspiracy against Hitler. It was among the German scientists who signed the notorious Manifesto in support of German military actions.

Meeting with Hitler

On May 16, 1933 (when he was president of Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft), Max Planck had a meeting with Hitler. He told him there were different kinds of Jews, some precious and others of no value, and which according to him was right make a distinction. Hitler replied that “a Jew is a Jew; all Jews stick like leeches. Wherever there is a Jew, others immediately gather Jews of all kinds." Subsequently Planck continued to insist, saying that the expulsion of the Jews would be harmful to German science, Hitler, therefore, enraged he replied: “Our national policies will not be reversed or modified, not even for scientists. If the dismissal of the Jews means the annihilation of current science German, we will be without science for a few years!”.

THANKS FOR THE ATTENTION

“Science cannot unravel the fundamental mystery of nature. And that's because, ultimately, we ourselves are part of the puzzle we're trying to solve." -MAX PLANCK-