Planck Quotes
Planck's quantization assumption applied to the matter that emits and absorbs radiation, not to radiation itself. As George Gamow later remarked, Planck thought that radiation was like butter; butter itself comes in any quantity, but it can be bought and sold only in multiples of one quarter pound. It was Albert Einstein (1879–1955) who in 1905 proposed that the energy of radiation of frequency ν was itself an integer multiple of hν.
Steven Weinberg
In fact, there is something puzzling about the Higgs mass we now do observe. It is generally known as the "hierarchy problem.” Since it is the Higgs mass that sets the scale for the masses of all other known elementary particles, one might guess that it should be similar to another mass that plays a fundamental role in physics, the so-called Planck mass, which is the fundamental unit of mass in the theory of gravitation. (It is the mass of hypothetical particles whose gravitational attraction for one another would be as strong as the electric force between two electrons separated by the same distance.) But the Planck mass is about a hundred thousand trillion times larger than the Higgs mass. So, although the Higgs particle is so heavy that a giant particle collider was needed to create it, we still have to ask, why is the Higgs mass so small?
Steven Weinberg
Given my interest in the concept of time, it was only natural that my attention was focused on the second principle, as I felt from the start that it would introduce a new, unexpected element into the description of physical world evolution. No doubt it was the same impression illustrious physicists such as Boltzmann and Planck would have felt before me. A huge part of my scientific career would then be devoted to the elucidation of macroscopic as well as microscopic aspects of the second principle, in order to extend its validity to new situations, and to the other fundamental approaches of theoretical physics, such as classical and quantum dynamics.
Ilya Prigogine
A second conspicuous landmark... is the enunciation of the fundamental law of radioactive disintegration by Rutherford and Soddy in 1903. This law was in no sense a consequence or development of Planck's theories; indeed fourteen years were to elapse before any connection was noticed between the two. The new law asserted that the atoms of radioactive substances broke up spontaneously, and not because of any particular conditions or special happenings. This seemed to involve an even more startling break with classical theory than the new laws of Planck; radioactive break-up appeared to be an effect without a cause, and suggested that the ultimate laws of nature were not even causal.
James Jeans
The classical mechanics had envisaged the world constructed of matter and radiation, the matter consisting of atoms and the radiation of waves. Planck's theory called for an atomicity of radiation similar to that which was so well established for matter. It supposed that radiation was not discharged from matter in a steady stream like water from a hose, but rather like lead from a machine-gun; it came off in separate chunks which Planck called quanta. This... carried tremendous philosophical consequences.
James Jeans
First we notice an investigation which Prof. Planck of Berlin published in 1899. His aim was that it should fit the observed facts of radiation, and show why the energy of bodies was not wholly transformed into radiation. ...his investigation seemed to show that continuity had to be given up, suggesting that in the last resort changes in the universe do not consist of continuous motions in space and time, but in some way are discontinuous.
James Jeans
It is clear, however, that the distinguishing mark of the whole development of theoretical chemistry and physics is the elimination of the anthropomorphic elements, especially specific sense-impressions, from the concepts. This process is called by Prof. M. Planck the objectification of the physical system.
J. R. Partington
There is a smallest unit of space. Its minimum value is given by the cube of the Planck length... If you take a volume of space and measure it to a very fine precision... It has to fall into some discrete series of numbers, just like the energy of an electron in an atom. ...we can calculate the discrete areas and volumes from the theory.
Lee Smolin
The BEH mechanism operates within the context of gauge theories. Despite the fact that grand unification schemes reach scales comparable to the Planck scale, there was, a priori, no indication that Yang-Mills fields offer any insight into quantum gravity. The only approach to quantum gravity that had some success, in particular in the context of a quantum interpretation of the black hole entropies, are the superstring theory approaches and the possible merging of the five perturbative approaches (Type IIA, IIB, Type I and the two heterotic strings) into an elusive M-theory whose classical limit would be 11-dimensional supergravity.
Francois Englert
We show that it is natural to introduce the concept of black-hole entropy as the measure of information about a black-hole interior which is inaccessible to an exterior observer. Considerations of simplicity and consistency, and dimensional arguments indicate that the black-hole entropy is equal to the ratio of the black-hole area to the square of the Planck length times a dimensionless constant of order unity. A different approach making use of the specific properties of Kerr black holes and of concepts from information theory leads to the same conclusion, and suggests a definite value for the constant.
Jacob Bekenstein
That classical theory had catastrophic implications for the constitution of matter was barely appreciated by Planck and others at the turn of the century, and played no substantial role in the development of quantum theory until Bohr's work 13 years later.
The lesson that could be drawn from this, and also from the development of general relativity, is that a crisis will only become creative if it is formulated in a mathematically precise manner. This conclusion has an echo in Bell's insistence on having quantum mechanics "fully formulated in mathematical terms, with nothing left to the discretion of the theoretical physicist", but what it really calls for is a critique of the "orthodox" theory fully formulated in mathematical terms with nothing left to the discretion of the critic.
Kurt Gottfried
Were an angel of the Lord to come and 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
