Talk:Max Planck
|
|
Please fix the picture formating for this page!
There is a better picture on the German Wikipedia. Perhaps I should replace the current one with it? (I'll probably get to it in a day or two, unless someone objects.) novakyu 10:24, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Very interesting:Einstein and Planck are both considered the fathers of quantum physics, and, yet, the name "Einstein" is now worldwide consdiered synonymous to genius, texts on his life scrolls down to 15 pages, his biographies can be used as door stoppers everywhere, and discussion about him exceeds the limit on wikipedia; while Planck is left cold. Two lines argue over his picture and his entry is not shorter than Schroedinger. I don't get it. They are both Germans.
Max Planck was a genius and is covered in most universities' second year of physics study. Every prominent or budding physicist knows the name, and one could say that his theories will live forver, disproven or not. Your point is a valid one but the man maketh the name and not the other way around. (How many Schroedinger particles or measurements are you aware of, aswell?)
- I think the difference is that Planck wasn't trying to rock the boat. In fact, his quantization to caluclate the black-body radiation was just considered a mathematical trick to make the problem tractable rather than something fundamental about the nature of light. In contrast, Einstein did rock the boat by saying that in order to explain the photoelectric effect light needed to be quantized.
- Although both Planck and Einstein made many important discoveries that furthered quantum mechanics, Einstein was the one who actually made the conceptual leap out onto a limb by saying that quantization wasn't a simplifying mathematical trick, but that light was actually a particle. In other words, Planck is rather an accidental father of quantum mechanics, compared to Einstein who was the visionary one who spurred the creation of quantum mechanics (despite his distaste for it) and created a whole new field of physics (general relativity). That's why Einstein is widely called a genius and Planck is not. --Laura Scudder | Talk 16:30, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
--
Hi, I just wrote an improved article about Planck for the German Wikipedia, and it might surely be useful for extending this article (and correcting various incorrect details), but therefore I need to translate it first which will take time (pls have a look yourself) Nullstein 03:15, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- I translated a few sections of his biography, but did it rather literally without an eye for beautiful English. I might come back later and work moving a few other sections on his work over, because that's rather underrepresented here. I haven't played with the old text at all but just left it as sort of an intro, so it may repeat stuff. Not sure what the incorrect details are that you reference. --Laura Scudder | Talk 17:46, 24 May 2005 (UTC)