WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.500 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are unpacking 00:00:03.500 --> 00:00:06.580 the life of a man whose name is absolutely inseparable 00:00:06.580 --> 00:00:09.019 from that fundamental shift into modern physics. 00:00:09.259 --> 00:00:11.820 Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck. That's the one. 00:00:12.099 --> 00:00:15.740 Born in 1858, his discovery of the quantum of 00:00:15.740 --> 00:00:18.399 energy, I mean the very bedrock of modern technology, 00:00:18.579 --> 00:00:21.359 earned him the 1918 Nobel Prize. That's right. 00:00:21.399 --> 00:00:23.679 And when you look at the landscape of... 20th 00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:26.760 century science, Planck. He stands as this towering, 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:30.300 almost foundational figure. But what's so fascinating 00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:32.299 here and what's really driving our deep dive 00:00:32.299 --> 00:00:35.079 today is that Planck was not a revolutionary. 00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:37.700 He wasn't some firebrand looking to tear down 00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:39.840 established science. No, not at all. Our mission 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:43.039 is to trace the story of, you know, a conservative 00:00:43.039 --> 00:00:45.619 mind, a meticulous traditional thinker who was 00:00:45.619 --> 00:00:48.000 really against his will, forced by the sheer 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:50.200 logic of experimental facts to announce the most 00:00:50.200 --> 00:00:53.280 radical idea in scientific history. The ultimate 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:55.740 reluctant revolutionary. It's an amazing story. 00:00:55.899 --> 00:00:58.140 He proved that the universe was fundamentally 00:00:58.140 --> 00:01:00.880 discontinuous, an idea that he personally just 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:03.640 despised. We are going to track his journey from 00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:07.359 mastering the seemingly completed field of classical 00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:11.640 thermodynamics all the way into the bizarre probabilistic 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:14.500 world of quantum mechanics. And while we're doing 00:01:14.500 --> 00:01:17.120 that, we'll detail the immense political influence 00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:20.799 he wielded and the truly overwhelming personal 00:01:20.799 --> 00:01:23.239 tragedies he had. had to endure across two world 00:01:23.239 --> 00:01:26.239 wars. Yeah, it's a heavy story. We have a comprehensive 00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:29.359 biographical overview for this one. It details 00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:31.599 the context of his scientific breakthroughs, 00:01:31.599 --> 00:01:34.099 his role as an institutional pillar of German 00:01:34.099 --> 00:01:37.780 science and the staggering personal losses that 00:01:37.780 --> 00:01:40.099 really defined his final decades, especially 00:01:40.099 --> 00:01:42.480 during the darkest periods of 20th century Germany. 00:01:42.620 --> 00:01:44.920 We're going to spend time with the facts. the 00:01:44.920 --> 00:01:48.319 philosophy and, you know, the human cost of being 00:01:48.319 --> 00:01:51.079 the one who opens Pandora's box. A box he never 00:01:51.079 --> 00:01:53.420 wanted to open. Okay, let's unpack this. To really 00:01:53.420 --> 00:01:55.379 understand why the quantum was such a monumental, 00:01:55.700 --> 00:01:58.459 you know, personal crisis for Planck, we have 00:01:58.459 --> 00:02:00.939 to start at his roots. We do. He came from a 00:02:00.939 --> 00:02:02.640 family that was just defined by intellectual 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:05.879 stability, order, and tradition. This lineage 00:02:05.879 --> 00:02:08.560 is so crucial. It wasn't just like a smart family. 00:02:08.840 --> 00:02:11.979 It was a deeply established, high achieving German 00:02:11.979 --> 00:02:14.740 academic dynasty. A dynasty. That's the right 00:02:14.740 --> 00:02:17.020 word. We're talking generations of institutional 00:02:17.020 --> 00:02:20.620 respect. His paternal great grandfather and his 00:02:20.620 --> 00:02:23.099 grandfather were both prominent theology professors 00:02:23.099 --> 00:02:25.620 at Göttingen. Right. And then his father, Wilhelm 00:02:25.620 --> 00:02:28.120 Planck, he was a law professor, first in Kiel, 00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:31.180 then later in Munich. They represented the absolute 00:02:31.180 --> 00:02:34.580 highest standards of meticulous, methodical German 00:02:34.580 --> 00:02:37.340 scholarship and, you know, civic order. He was 00:02:37.340 --> 00:02:40.780 born in Kiel in 1858, but his earliest memories 00:02:40.780 --> 00:02:44.520 were colored by a conflict, which is, I mean. 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:46.719 It's so ironic considering the turbulence he 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:49.080 would face later. Our sources note that as a 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:51.840 young child, this is in 1864, he watched the 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:53.840 marching of Prussian and Austrian troops during 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:56.219 the Second Schleswig War. And that experience 00:02:56.219 --> 00:02:58.699 placed him right at the moment of Germany's transition, 00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:01.939 its rapid sort of militaristic unification. And 00:03:01.939 --> 00:03:03.840 that would have reinforced a need for structure, 00:03:03.979 --> 00:03:06.580 for order. So it's really no surprise that he 00:03:06.580 --> 00:03:09.060 carried this sense of order and this deep commitment 00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:11.960 to harmony into his personal life, especially 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:14.360 his music. Right. His musical talent wasn't just 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:17.120 a hobby for him. It was a true passion. Oh, absolutely. 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:19.719 He took singing lessons, mastered the piano, 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:22.610 the organ, the cello. He was even talented enough 00:03:22.610 --> 00:03:25.909 to compose songs in small operas. He really had 00:03:25.909 --> 00:03:28.210 the opportunity to choose music as a profession. 00:03:28.469 --> 00:03:30.569 And that tells you so much about the mind that 00:03:30.569 --> 00:03:33.189 chose physics instead. Yeah. Music, especially 00:03:33.189 --> 00:03:36.189 classical composition, is the ultimate structured 00:03:36.189 --> 00:03:39.590 harmonic system. The fact that he chose physics, 00:03:39.650 --> 00:03:44.000 a field focused on universal, elegant laws. The 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:46.039 music of the spheres, if you want to be poetic 00:03:46.039 --> 00:03:48.620 about it, it shows he was looking for an underlying 00:03:48.620 --> 00:03:51.419 absolute harmony in the universe. He was seeking 00:03:51.419 --> 00:03:54.639 order, not chaos. And this quest for order, it 00:03:54.639 --> 00:03:56.539 leads us to one of the most astonishing anecdotes 00:03:56.539 --> 00:03:58.979 in the history of science. It really is. So in 00:03:58.979 --> 00:04:01.759 1874, Planck enrolls at the University of Munich. 00:04:02.020 --> 00:04:04.620 He performs his only scientific experiment, studying 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:07.159 the diffusion of hydrogen through heated platinum 00:04:07.159 --> 00:04:10.189 under a professor, Philip von Jolly. And von 00:04:10.189 --> 00:04:12.689 Jolly, who's an established authority, gave the 00:04:12.689 --> 00:04:15.509 young Planck advice that just perfectly encapsulates 00:04:15.509 --> 00:04:17.910 the prevailing scientific smugness of the late 00:04:17.910 --> 00:04:21.389 19th century. Oh, this is the best part. In 1878, 00:04:21.670 --> 00:04:24.350 Jolly urged Planck against pursuing theoretical 00:04:24.350 --> 00:04:26.889 physics. He told him the field was essentially 00:04:26.889 --> 00:04:29.670 almost complete. Imagine that conversation. A 00:04:29.670 --> 00:04:32.089 professor telling a brilliant student, don't 00:04:32.089 --> 00:04:34.370 bother, we've pretty much solved it all. Jolly 00:04:34.370 --> 00:04:37.199 genuinely believed it. I mean, he viewed physics 00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:40.660 as a highly developed, nearly fully matured science. 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:44.139 Wow. He argued that the major foundational discoveries 00:04:44.139 --> 00:04:46.759 had been made, particularly the crowning achievement, 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:49.480 the principle of conservation of energy. He said 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:52.660 all that was left was the finding of a few small 00:04:52.660 --> 00:04:55.360 gaps or holes to be filled up. The fundamental 00:04:55.360 --> 00:04:57.860 structure was finished. And what's truly remarkable 00:04:57.860 --> 00:05:00.339 is that this conviction came just a few decades 00:05:00.339 --> 00:05:04.040 before that very field would uncover relativity, 00:05:04.319 --> 00:05:07.329 quantum mechanics. nuclear physics, everything. 00:05:07.529 --> 00:05:10.209 Everything. But Planck, despite this advice, 00:05:10.449 --> 00:05:13.930 he chose theoretical physics anyway, which demonstrates 00:05:13.930 --> 00:05:16.930 this quiet, internal conviction that the foundations 00:05:16.930 --> 00:05:19.050 weren't quite as settled as everyone thought. 00:05:19.250 --> 00:05:21.370 He had to believe there was still something foundational 00:05:21.370 --> 00:05:24.050 to discover, so he went to Berlin, studied with 00:05:24.050 --> 00:05:26.689 intellectual giants. Like Helmholtz and Kirchhoff. 00:05:26.829 --> 00:05:30.189 Right, and he noted the contrast between Hermann 00:05:30.189 --> 00:05:34.639 von Helmholtz, who was friendly, but, uh... Notoriously 00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:37.560 slow and unprepared, often making calculation 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:40.459 errors. I love that detail. And Gustav Kirchhoff, 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:43.279 who was prepared, meticulous, but delivered his 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:46.279 lectures in this dry, monotonous tone. Planck 00:05:46.279 --> 00:05:48.220 apparently quickly became close friends with 00:05:48.220 --> 00:05:50.680 the disorganized but engaging Helmholtz. But 00:05:50.680 --> 00:05:52.860 his real passion, it came from self -study, from 00:05:52.860 --> 00:05:55.240 pouring over the dense writings of Rudolf Clausius, 00:05:55.379 --> 00:05:58.279 which led him to focus intensely on thermodynamics. 00:05:58.579 --> 00:06:07.210 And that led to his 1879 doctoral thesis, This 00:06:07.210 --> 00:06:10.370 is where we first see his genius in action. Yeah. 00:06:10.370 --> 00:06:14.410 His methodical generalizing mind. Exactly. Thermodynamics, 00:06:14.490 --> 00:06:17.769 the study of heat, work, energy. It was messy. 00:06:18.230 --> 00:06:20.850 Claus just had defined the second law, the law 00:06:20.850 --> 00:06:23.430 of entropy, stating that entropy can be created 00:06:23.430 --> 00:06:26.230 but never destroyed. Planck's goal was just to 00:06:26.230 --> 00:06:28.750 bring mathematical structure and universal applicability 00:06:28.750 --> 00:06:31.209 to this concept. And he didn't just affirm the 00:06:31.209 --> 00:06:33.860 law. He generalized it. And dramatically so. 00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:36.800 He cleared up existing contradictions and instead 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:39.160 of limiting its application to just, you know, 00:06:39.180 --> 00:06:41.620 reversible cycles or specific thermal processes. 00:06:41.899 --> 00:06:44.420 He extended the second law's validity to all 00:06:44.420 --> 00:06:47.620 natural processes, everything. This gave entropy 00:06:47.620 --> 00:06:50.259 this immense universality. That's a huge philosophical 00:06:50.259 --> 00:06:53.420 shift. It was. He emphasized that entropy isn't 00:06:53.420 --> 00:06:55.959 merely a measure of heat diffusion. It is the 00:06:55.959 --> 00:06:58.339 definitive measure of the irreversibility of 00:06:58.339 --> 00:07:00.920 any process. If a process generates entropy, 00:07:01.139 --> 00:07:04.139 you cannot undo it. Period. And maximum entropy 00:07:04.139 --> 00:07:06.899 means? It means total equilibrium, the end state. 00:07:07.100 --> 00:07:09.600 He showed that all laws describing thermodynamic 00:07:09.600 --> 00:07:12.079 equilibrium could be derived solely from this 00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:14.720 principle of maximum entropy. So he essentially 00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:17.819 took one of the most complex abstract concepts 00:07:17.819 --> 00:07:21.259 in classical physics and gave it a rigorous mathematical 00:07:21.259 --> 00:07:24.709 spine that applied to everything. This sounds 00:07:24.709 --> 00:07:26.970 like the perfect definition of a physicist working 00:07:26.970 --> 00:07:30.689 in a nearly complete science. Exactly. Just tidying 00:07:30.689 --> 00:07:33.170 up the foundations. But here's the twist that 00:07:33.170 --> 00:07:36.290 shows just how global and mature classical physics 00:07:36.290 --> 00:07:38.829 was becoming. What's that? Planck's rigorous 00:07:38.829 --> 00:07:41.750 work was largely duplicated independently in 00:07:41.750 --> 00:07:44.449 the United States by Josiah Willard Gibbs. Right. 00:07:44.529 --> 00:07:47.490 Gibbs had published nearly the same thermodynamical 00:07:47.490 --> 00:07:50.730 formalism starting in 1876, three years before 00:07:50.730 --> 00:07:53.209 Planck's thesis. But Planck was completely unaware. 00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:56.199 of it. Gibbs' work wasn't translated into German 00:07:56.199 --> 00:07:59.540 until 1892. So two giants arriving at the same 00:07:59.540 --> 00:08:01.839 place independently. Right. And it highlights 00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:03.740 the intellectual pressure that was building in 00:08:03.740 --> 00:08:06.279 the field. While Gibbs' approach, focusing on 00:08:06.279 --> 00:08:08.519 equilibrium states, became the more common sort 00:08:08.519 --> 00:08:11.519 of simplified framework we teach today, Planck's 00:08:11.519 --> 00:08:13.639 focus on the irreversible processes themselves 00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:16.420 is credited with having greater universality. 00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:18.500 He was interested in the journey, not just the 00:08:18.500 --> 00:08:21.040 destination. A perfect way to put it. He cared 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:23.259 about how systems change toward equilibrium, 00:08:23.540 --> 00:08:26.120 not just what the stable end state looks like. 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:29.259 So by the late 1890s, Max Planck has established 00:08:29.259 --> 00:08:31.879 he's the master of classical physics, meticulous, 00:08:31.899 --> 00:08:34.639 logical, highly respected, and has successfully 00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:37.679 systematized one of its deepest laws. He's a 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:40.889 man who trusts. Structure and continuity above 00:08:40.889 --> 00:08:43.149 all else. And this is the intellectual foundation 00:08:43.149 --> 00:08:45.690 that is about to collide head on with a completely 00:08:45.690 --> 00:08:49.330 unsolvable problem. The problem was black body 00:08:49.330 --> 00:08:52.350 radiation, and it was the ultimate Achilles heel 00:08:52.350 --> 00:08:55.190 of 19th century physics. It demanded a physical 00:08:55.190 --> 00:08:58.090 solution, but every single classical approach 00:08:58.090 --> 00:09:00.990 just failed to fit the experimental facts. Okay, 00:09:01.049 --> 00:09:02.429 let's make sure we have this clear for everyone. 00:09:02.570 --> 00:09:05.509 A black body is a theoretical perfect absorber 00:09:05.509 --> 00:09:07.509 and perfect emitter. So if you heat it up, it 00:09:07.509 --> 00:09:10.129 glows. Exactly. The physical problem, which was 00:09:10.129 --> 00:09:12.350 first posed by Kirchoff, was simply to chart 00:09:12.350 --> 00:09:14.750 the intensity of the light emitted by this object 00:09:14.750 --> 00:09:17.789 as a function of both its frequency, so the color, 00:09:17.870 --> 00:09:19.529 and its temperature. We just need to find the 00:09:19.529 --> 00:09:22.539 curve. And this curve, according to all the established 00:09:22.539 --> 00:09:25.419 rules of physics, should be smooth, continuous, 00:09:25.620 --> 00:09:28.480 predictable. But when scientists actually measured 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:31.299 it, they found a curve that was completely contrary 00:09:31.299 --> 00:09:34.899 to theoretical predictions, especially at the 00:09:34.899 --> 00:09:37.799 extremes. So classical physics had two main theories 00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:39.779 trying to solve this, and they were like ships 00:09:39.779 --> 00:09:41.899 passing in the night. They just didn't connect. 00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:45.190 That's right. First, you had Wien's Law. It was 00:09:45.190 --> 00:09:47.809 proposed and it worked beautifully for high frequencies, 00:09:48.009 --> 00:09:49.970 the short wavelengths like visible light and 00:09:49.970 --> 00:09:52.950 ultraviolet. But when experimentalists measured 00:09:52.950 --> 00:09:55.769 the low frequencies, the long wavelengths like. 00:09:56.110 --> 00:09:59.029 infrared and radio waves, Wien's law completely 00:09:59.029 --> 00:10:01.629 failed. It just didn't match. Okay, so then you 00:10:01.629 --> 00:10:04.029 have the Rayleigh -Jeans law. This one was derived 00:10:04.029 --> 00:10:06.250 rigorously from classical principles, right? 00:10:06.330 --> 00:10:09.149 Yeah. Specifically, the principle of equipartition 00:10:09.149 --> 00:10:12.149 of energy. Yes, which assumed that every possible 00:10:12.149 --> 00:10:14.629 mode of vibration should share energy equally. 00:10:14.929 --> 00:10:17.149 And it worked fine at low frequencies, matching 00:10:17.149 --> 00:10:20.019 the data where Wien's law failed. It did. But 00:10:20.019 --> 00:10:22.220 when you tried to extrapolate the Rayleigh -Jeans 00:10:22.220 --> 00:10:24.960 law to high frequencies, to the short wavelengths, 00:10:25.259 --> 00:10:27.460 it predicted that the intensity of the emitted 00:10:27.460 --> 00:10:30.259 radiation should increase infinitely as the frequency 00:10:30.259 --> 00:10:33.299 increased. And that's the famous Ultraviolet 00:10:33.299 --> 00:10:35.899 catastrophe. It is. And it's named that because 00:10:35.899 --> 00:10:38.940 it predicted that any warm object, be it a light 00:10:38.940 --> 00:10:41.700 bulb filament or a cooling stove, should instantly 00:10:41.700 --> 00:10:44.259 release an infinite amount of energy, primarily 00:10:44.259 --> 00:10:46.679 in the high frequency range. It would just vaporize 00:10:46.679 --> 00:10:50.320 itself and everything around it. So a clear non 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:53.240 -physical absurdity. Utter nonsense. Now, our 00:10:53.240 --> 00:10:57.659 sources clarify a crucial point here. This catastrophe, 00:10:57.899 --> 00:11:00.389 while it's famous today, wasn't actually Planck 00:11:00.389 --> 00:11:03.070 a primary motivation for seeking a new law. No, 00:11:03.210 --> 00:11:06.090 he was a scientist of meticulous detail. He simply 00:11:06.090 --> 00:11:08.470 needed an equation that fit the practical, measured 00:11:08.470 --> 00:11:10.669 experimental data perfectly across the entire 00:11:10.669 --> 00:11:13.669 spectrum. That was it. His initial effort, which 00:11:13.669 --> 00:11:15.649 was completely in line with his classical background, 00:11:15.850 --> 00:11:18.830 was just to improve Wien's law. He produced the 00:11:18.830 --> 00:11:22.190 Wien -Planck law in 1899, but experimental verification 00:11:22.190 --> 00:11:25.129 soon proved that this, too, failed to describe 00:11:25.129 --> 00:11:27.730 the low -frequency reality. He was completely 00:11:27.730 --> 00:11:30.899 stuck. So here is the master of classical structure, 00:11:31.059 --> 00:11:33.539 whose first instinct is always to tidy up the 00:11:33.539 --> 00:11:35.980 existing frameworks, and he's faced with total 00:11:35.980 --> 00:11:39.299 failure. What happens next is what he famously 00:11:39.299 --> 00:11:41.759 called an act of despair. It was an intellectual 00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:45.179 retreat. A desperate move. Remember, Planck hated 00:11:45.179 --> 00:11:47.279 the statistical interpretation of the second 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:49.279 law that was championed by Boltzmann. Right. 00:11:49.340 --> 00:11:51.899 Boltzmann saw entropy as a measure of disorder. 00:11:52.179 --> 00:11:54.759 Yes. The sheer number of possible microscopic 00:11:54.759 --> 00:11:57.500 arrangements that correspond to a macroscopic 00:11:57.500 --> 00:12:00.279 state. Planck viewed this probabilistic molecular 00:12:00.279 --> 00:12:03.779 approach with. deep suspicion. He preferred the 00:12:03.779 --> 00:12:06.799 certainty of continuous deterministic laws. But 00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:08.940 to solve the black body problem, he'd run out 00:12:08.940 --> 00:12:11.320 of classical deterministic options. He had nowhere 00:12:11.320 --> 00:12:14.500 else to go. He felt compelled to adopt Boltzmann's 00:12:14.500 --> 00:12:16.779 statistical method, even though it was philosophically 00:12:16.779 --> 00:12:19.720 repugnant to him. He later admitted he was ready 00:12:19.720 --> 00:12:22.259 to sacrifice any of my previous convictions about 00:12:22.259 --> 00:12:25.750 physics. The desperation worked. It did. By November 00:12:25.750 --> 00:12:28.509 1900, he had revised his derivation using the 00:12:28.509 --> 00:12:30.669 statistical approach, essentially calculating 00:12:30.669 --> 00:12:33.190 the entropy of the oscillators emitting the radiation. 00:12:33.490 --> 00:12:36.149 He manipulated the mathematics until he found 00:12:36.149 --> 00:12:38.870 a formula that perfectly unified the high -frequency 00:12:38.870 --> 00:12:42.070 and low -frequency results, a single curve that 00:12:42.070 --> 00:12:44.769 matched all the experiments. And on December 00:12:44.769 --> 00:12:48.330 14, 1900, he presents this to the German Physical 00:12:48.330 --> 00:12:51.429 Society. That date is the recognized birthday 00:12:51.429 --> 00:12:54.649 of quantum physics. It is, because the only way 00:12:54.649 --> 00:12:56.750 he could derive this perfect law was by making 00:12:56.750 --> 00:13:00.610 one central revolutionary assumption, the Planck 00:13:00.610 --> 00:13:03.370 postulate. The assumption was simple, yet completely 00:13:03.370 --> 00:13:05.789 incompatible with everything he believed. Right. 00:13:06.370 --> 00:13:08.509 Electromagnetic energy could not be emitted continuously, 00:13:08.830 --> 00:13:11.289 like smoothly flowing down a ramp. Instead, it 00:13:11.289 --> 00:13:13.629 must be emitted in tiny, discrete, fixed packets, 00:13:13.850 --> 00:13:16.129 or quanta. These packets are defined by the fundamental 00:13:16.129 --> 00:13:19.549 relationship E equals a h nu. Energy equals the 00:13:19.549 --> 00:13:21.769 Planck constant times the frequency of the radiation. 00:13:22.029 --> 00:13:24.090 And this is the conceptual leap. The energy of 00:13:24.090 --> 00:13:26.289 any oscillator could only be an integer multiple 00:13:26.289 --> 00:13:29.029 of that fundamental unit h nu. So if you imagine 00:13:29.029 --> 00:13:31.870 energy as a ramp in classical physics, where 00:13:31.870 --> 00:13:34.590 you can stand anywhere. Planck showed that reality 00:13:34.590 --> 00:13:37.029 was a staircase. You could only stand on the 00:13:37.029 --> 00:13:39.110 first step, the second step, or the third step. 00:13:39.190 --> 00:13:41.570 You couldn't hover between the steps. This Planck 00:13:41.570 --> 00:13:45.070 constant, H, the action quantum, is the universal 00:13:45.070 --> 00:13:48.350 constant that defines the scale of this discontinuity. 00:13:48.429 --> 00:13:50.870 It's the numerical limit on how precisely we 00:13:50.870 --> 00:13:52.970 can measure things. It's truly incredible that 00:13:52.970 --> 00:13:55.309 he derived a universal law from a concept he 00:13:55.309 --> 00:13:57.409 found so repugnant. And he immediately recognized 00:13:57.409 --> 00:13:59.610 the gravity of what he had done. He told his 00:13:59.610 --> 00:14:02.309 son in 1918 that this was a discovery of the 00:14:02.309 --> 00:14:05.129 first rank, comparable perhaps only to the discoveries 00:14:05.129 --> 00:14:07.750 of Newton. Which earned him the Nobel Prize for 00:14:07.750 --> 00:14:10.470 1918. Now the constant h wasn't just some mathematical 00:14:10.470 --> 00:14:14.029 fix. It allowed him to define a new universal 00:14:14.029 --> 00:14:17.190 set of units. The Planck length, Planck mass, 00:14:17.450 --> 00:14:20.230 Planck time based only on fundamental physical 00:14:20.230 --> 00:14:23.110 constants. It was a complete reordering of fundamental 00:14:23.110 --> 00:14:26.330 constants. It defined the smallest possible scale 00:14:26.330 --> 00:14:29.259 of distance in time. He had found a limit inherent 00:14:29.259 --> 00:14:32.620 to nature itself. And yet, this is the paradox. 00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:36.419 Having proven quantization mathematically, Planck, 00:14:36.500 --> 00:14:38.919 the ultimate traditionalist, spent several years 00:14:38.919 --> 00:14:41.139 desperately trying to force the action quantum 00:14:41.139 --> 00:14:44.340 back into a classical continuous framework. He 00:14:44.340 --> 00:14:46.940 called these attempts unavailing and a cause 00:14:46.940 --> 00:14:50.120 of much trouble. He simply could not reconcile 00:14:50.120 --> 00:14:52.919 the philosophical implications of discontinuity 00:14:52.919 --> 00:14:55.740 and non -determinism with his deep -seated commitment 00:14:55.740 --> 00:14:59.100 to order. He was the accidental architect of 00:14:59.100 --> 00:15:02.299 chaos. He even had to aggressively critique his 00:15:02.299 --> 00:15:04.899 contemporaries who, in trying to save classical 00:15:04.899 --> 00:15:07.960 physics, suggested setting his constant h to 00:15:07.960 --> 00:15:10.940 zero. Right. James Jeans tried this. He believed 00:15:10.940 --> 00:15:13.340 that if h were infinitesimally small, the quantum 00:15:13.340 --> 00:15:15.940 effects would just vanish and the classical laws 00:15:15.940 --> 00:15:18.840 would return. And Planck's reaction? He was scathing. 00:15:18.879 --> 00:15:21.440 He knew the constant had a precise, measurable, 00:15:21.620 --> 00:15:24.929 non -zero value confirmed by experiment. He criticized 00:15:24.929 --> 00:15:27.929 Jeans, saying he was an example of a theoretician 00:15:27.929 --> 00:15:30.250 as should never be existing. He even compared 00:15:30.250 --> 00:15:32.710 him to the philosopher Hegel, suggesting so much 00:15:32.710 --> 00:15:34.830 the worse for the facts if they don't fit. That 00:15:34.830 --> 00:15:37.470 quote perfectly summarizes Planck's core identity. 00:15:38.289 --> 00:15:40.690 He was fundamentally a conservative thinker, 00:15:40.710 --> 00:15:43.950 but his belief in the compelling force of logical 00:15:43.950 --> 00:15:47.850 reasoning derived from facts was so strong that 00:15:47.850 --> 00:15:50.389 he had no choice but to announce the most revolutionary 00:15:50.389 --> 00:15:54.129 idea physics had ever seen. He trusted data over 00:15:54.129 --> 00:15:57.669 dogma every time. Beyond the equations, Planck 00:15:57.669 --> 00:15:59.929 was an organizational giant. I mean, by the time 00:15:59.929 --> 00:16:01.970 he made his quantum discovery, he was already 00:16:01.970 --> 00:16:04.149 an established pillar of the scientific community. 00:16:04.370 --> 00:16:06.250 Right. He was appointed full professor at the 00:16:06.250 --> 00:16:09.909 University of Berlin in 1892, succeeding Kirchhoff. 00:16:09.990 --> 00:16:13.049 And he spent decades just shaping the next generation 00:16:13.049 --> 00:16:16.070 of German physicists. And his dedication to precision 00:16:16.070 --> 00:16:19.179 translated directly to his teaching. He taught 00:16:19.179 --> 00:16:21.480 a foundational six semester course on theoretical 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:25.519 physics. It may have been dry, but it was faultlessly 00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:27.899 accurate. Lees -Meitner noted that his lectures 00:16:27.899 --> 00:16:30.799 were somewhat impersonal, but the rigorous standard 00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:33.120 he set was legendary. There's a great quote from 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:35.620 an English attendee, James R. Partington, who 00:16:35.620 --> 00:16:37.720 described him as using no notes, never making 00:16:37.720 --> 00:16:39.700 mistakes, never faltering, the best lecturer 00:16:39.700 --> 00:16:42.279 I ever heard. The anecdote suggests he was so 00:16:42.279 --> 00:16:44.779 dedicated that he would continue teaching even 00:16:44.779 --> 00:16:48.419 as students suffering from the overcrowded, overheated 00:16:48.419 --> 00:16:51.059 lecture hall would occasionally drop to the floor. 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:53.100 He was just relentless in his dedication to the 00:16:53.100 --> 00:16:55.759 material. He was. And he also recognized the 00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:57.659 need for structure in the broader scientific 00:16:57.659 --> 00:17:00.500 community. He was instrumental in creating the 00:17:00.500 --> 00:17:04.440 German Physical Society, the DPG, in 1898 and 00:17:04.440 --> 00:17:07.220 served as its president for four years. And his 00:17:07.220 --> 00:17:09.579 doctoral students included some huge names like 00:17:09.579 --> 00:17:12.000 Maxwell. von Laue and Walter Schottky. His influence 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:14.240 was immense, but his greatest organizational 00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:17.200 achievement and maybe his greatest act of intellectual 00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:20.119 humility was his steadfast championing of Albert 00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:22.420 Einstein. Yeah, this is such a key relationship. 00:17:22.859 --> 00:17:25.380 Planck was one of the very few who immediately 00:17:25.380 --> 00:17:28.440 grasped the revolutionary significance of Einstein's 00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:31.859 1905 papers on special relativity. Most established 00:17:31.859 --> 00:17:34.240 physicists just dismissed it, the work of an 00:17:34.240 --> 00:17:36.880 outsider, a patent clerk. But not Planck. No. 00:17:37.509 --> 00:17:40.289 Planck, the man of structure, recognized the 00:17:40.289 --> 00:17:43.089 profound elegance and universality in Einstein's 00:17:43.089 --> 00:17:46.029 mathematics. He used his substantial institutional 00:17:46.029 --> 00:17:49.470 influence and authority in Berlin to ensure relativity 00:17:49.470 --> 00:17:52.150 gained rapid acceptance in Germany. He didn't 00:17:52.150 --> 00:17:54.230 just support it, he actively extended the theory. 00:17:54.430 --> 00:17:57.210 He did. He recast it in terms of classical action, 00:17:57.470 --> 00:17:59.990 integrating it into the existing framework he 00:17:59.990 --> 00:18:02.670 knew so well. This intellectual partnership is 00:18:02.670 --> 00:18:05.509 just central to 20th century physics, yet it 00:18:05.509 --> 00:18:08.839 was so rife with irony. Plank, the father of 00:18:08.839 --> 00:18:11.660 the quantum, initially rejected Einstein's next 00:18:11.660 --> 00:18:14.829 hypothesis. The hypothesis of the light quantum, 00:18:15.009 --> 00:18:17.089 what we now call the photon. It's the ultimate 00:18:17.089 --> 00:18:20.390 intellectual paradox. In 1905, Einstein used 00:18:20.390 --> 00:18:23.009 the concept of quantized energy to explain the 00:18:23.009 --> 00:18:25.230 photoelectric effect, essentially arguing that 00:18:25.230 --> 00:18:27.210 light itself was packaged into these discrete 00:18:27.210 --> 00:18:29.910 units photons. And Planck balked at this. Why? 00:18:30.230 --> 00:18:32.789 Because accepting the photon meant rejecting 00:18:32.789 --> 00:18:35.329 Maxwell's universally successful wave theory 00:18:35.329 --> 00:18:37.549 of electrodynamics. So he saw it as throwing 00:18:37.549 --> 00:18:39.710 out the baby with the bathwater. Completely. 00:18:40.430 --> 00:18:42.710 Planck felt that accepting the light quantum 00:18:42.710 --> 00:18:45.809 would be a huge step backwards for physics. He 00:18:45.809 --> 00:18:47.710 famously wrote that it would send the theory 00:18:47.710 --> 00:18:50.569 of light back, not by decades, but by centuries, 00:18:50.849 --> 00:18:53.549 into the age when Christian Huygens dared to 00:18:53.549 --> 00:18:56.309 fight against the mighty emission theory of Isaac 00:18:56.309 --> 00:18:59.650 Newton. So the man who introduced discontinuity 00:18:59.650 --> 00:19:03.460 of matter rejected discontinuity in light. What 00:19:03.460 --> 00:19:05.859 was the evidence that finally persuaded the reluctant 00:19:05.859 --> 00:19:08.700 revolutionary to accept the logical conclusion 00:19:08.700 --> 00:19:11.250 of his own discovery? It was empirical failure 00:19:11.250 --> 00:19:14.750 in other areas. In 1910, Einstein pointed out 00:19:14.750 --> 00:19:16.890 that classical physics just could not explain 00:19:16.890 --> 00:19:19.329 the strange behavior of specific heat and materials 00:19:19.329 --> 00:19:22.230 at low temperatures. This was a massive anomaly. 00:19:22.450 --> 00:19:24.269 Another crack in the foundation. A huge one. 00:19:24.390 --> 00:19:26.789 And Planck and Walther Nernst took the lead in 00:19:26.789 --> 00:19:29.089 trying to resolve these problems, which culminated 00:19:29.089 --> 00:19:30.990 in them organizing the first Solvay Conference 00:19:30.990 --> 00:19:34.450 in Brussels in 1911. This conference was basically 00:19:34.450 --> 00:19:36.829 an emergency meeting of the world's leading physicists 00:19:36.829 --> 00:19:39.049 to deal with all the accumulated failures of 00:19:39.049 --> 00:19:41.380 classical physics. physics. That's exactly what 00:19:41.380 --> 00:19:44.220 it was. And it was there, faced with the mounting 00:19:44.220 --> 00:19:47.779 undeniable empirical evidence, things like the 00:19:47.779 --> 00:19:50.200 specific heat anomalies that required quantization 00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:53.400 for an explanation, that Einstein finally managed 00:19:53.400 --> 00:19:55.700 to convince Planck that the light quantum was 00:19:55.700 --> 00:19:58.579 real. The facts won again. The facts had once 00:19:58.579 --> 00:20:00.799 again driven Planck against his philosophical 00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:02.960 preference. And his conversion was absolute. 00:20:03.259 --> 00:20:06.599 He championed Einstein so thoroughly that in 00:20:06.599 --> 00:20:09.650 1914, Using his power as dean of the University 00:20:09.650 --> 00:20:12.710 of Berlin, he established a special, highly prestigious 00:20:12.710 --> 00:20:15.509 professorship specifically to bring Einstein 00:20:15.509 --> 00:20:17.819 to Berlin. And they became close colleagues. 00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:20.079 And despite their profound intellectual battles 00:20:20.079 --> 00:20:22.839 over the precise interpretation of quanta, deep 00:20:22.839 --> 00:20:25.380 personal friends, they often met to play music 00:20:25.380 --> 00:20:27.759 together, finding common ground in the universal 00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:30.200 harmony of their musical passion, even as their 00:20:30.200 --> 00:20:32.180 physics discussions revolved around fundamental 00:20:32.180 --> 00:20:34.819 discontinuity and discord. That powerful intellectual 00:20:34.819 --> 00:20:37.960 partnership between Planck and Einstein, it unfolded 00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:39.880 against the backdrop of Europe's descent into 00:20:39.880 --> 00:20:42.619 the First World War. Right. And this really tested 00:20:42.619 --> 00:20:45.059 Planck's commitment to scientific ideals against 00:20:45.059 --> 00:20:48.349 his... national patriotism. Initially, like many 00:20:48.349 --> 00:20:51.210 German academics and patriots, Planck embraced 00:20:51.210 --> 00:20:54.490 the war with enthusiasm. He did. He viewed the 00:20:54.490 --> 00:20:57.029 national mobilization as this profound moment 00:20:57.029 --> 00:21:01.069 of unity, celebrating that it led to the smooth 00:21:01.069 --> 00:21:03.630 solution of the most difficult domestic political 00:21:03.630 --> 00:21:07.049 problems by the unification of all parties. And 00:21:07.049 --> 00:21:10.069 infamously, he signed the Manifesto of the 93 00:21:10.069 --> 00:21:12.849 Intellectuals. which was a piece of wartime propaganda 00:21:12.849 --> 00:21:15.670 that fiercely defended German militarism and 00:21:15.670 --> 00:21:17.930 denied atrocities. It's hard to reconcile that 00:21:17.930 --> 00:21:20.309 the man of rational principle with this, you 00:21:20.309 --> 00:21:22.890 know, polemic endorsement. It's a profound tension 00:21:22.890 --> 00:21:25.589 in his character, the universal scientist versus 00:21:25.589 --> 00:21:28.470 the patriotic German institution builder. However. 00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:31.640 Even within that wartime fervor, his commitment 00:21:31.640 --> 00:21:34.160 to scientific impartiality showed through. It 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:36.519 did. While German troops were fighting the Allies, 00:21:36.759 --> 00:21:39.279 in 1915 he successfully voted for an Italian 00:21:39.279 --> 00:21:41.980 scientific paper to receive a prestigious prize 00:21:41.980 --> 00:21:45.160 from the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He maintained 00:21:45.160 --> 00:21:47.700 that science transcended national borders whenever 00:21:47.700 --> 00:21:50.599 possible. So after Germany's defeat, during the 00:21:50.599 --> 00:21:52.980 economic turmoil and political chaos of the Weimar 00:21:52.980 --> 00:21:56.059 Republic, Planck emerges as the ultimate institutional 00:21:56.059 --> 00:22:00.190 stabilizer. He was the rock. As the highest authority 00:22:00.190 --> 00:22:03.990 in German science, he issued this powerful, resolute 00:22:03.990 --> 00:22:06.789 call to his colleagues to simply persevere and 00:22:06.789 --> 00:22:09.349 continue working. He knew science was the only 00:22:09.349 --> 00:22:12.480 hope for recovery. The only way. He co -founded 00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:14.720 the Nakamannschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft, 00:22:15.200 --> 00:22:17.599 the emergency organization of German science 00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:21.140 in 1920 with Fritz Hopper, dedicated to raising 00:22:21.140 --> 00:22:23.660 desperately needed foreign funds to keep German 00:22:23.660 --> 00:22:26.660 research alive and productive. But if he successfully 00:22:26.660 --> 00:22:29.920 stabilized the institutional structure, the intellectual 00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:32.460 structure of physics just continued to move away 00:22:32.460 --> 00:22:35.519 from him. It did. By the late 1920s, the younger 00:22:35.519 --> 00:22:39.140 generation, Bohr, Heisenberg. Pauli. They had 00:22:39.140 --> 00:22:41.599 formulated the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum 00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:43.799 mechanics. And Planck, the father of the quantum, 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:46.579 absolutely rejected the finished product. He 00:22:46.579 --> 00:22:49.160 hated it. The Copenhagen interpretation, with 00:22:49.160 --> 00:22:51.619 its probabilistic nature, its reliance on the 00:22:51.619 --> 00:22:54.400 observer, its fundamental assertion that certain 00:22:54.400 --> 00:22:56.920 properties simply could not be known simultaneously, 00:22:57.319 --> 00:22:59.519 Eisenberg's uncertainty principle. It's anathema 00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:02.220 to him. Completely anathema to his deterministic, 00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:05.099 structured view of the universe. He, along with 00:23:05.099 --> 00:23:08.299 Einstein and Schrodinger, clung to the hope that 00:23:08.299 --> 00:23:10.779 a deterministic classical theory would eventually 00:23:10.779 --> 00:23:13.200 emerge. He literally hoped that the development 00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:16.460 of wave mechanics, the very field his work catalyzed, 00:23:16.519 --> 00:23:19.619 would render quantum theory obsolete. He was 00:23:19.619 --> 00:23:21.900 the reluctant parent who disowned his own child. 00:23:22.119 --> 00:23:25.019 This conflict led to his most famous and yet 00:23:25.019 --> 00:23:28.619 profoundly bitter quote about scientific change. 00:23:28.940 --> 00:23:31.450 He had to accept that the facts were right. But 00:23:31.450 --> 00:23:33.990 he couldn't personally make the leap. He stated 00:23:33.990 --> 00:23:36.710 that a new scientific truth does not triumph 00:23:36.710 --> 00:23:39.210 by convincing its opponents, but rather because 00:23:39.210 --> 00:23:42.009 its opponents eventually die and a new generation 00:23:42.009 --> 00:23:43.910 grows up that is familiar with it. That is the 00:23:43.910 --> 00:23:45.990 resignation of the reluctant revolutionary. He 00:23:45.990 --> 00:23:48.049 watched the chaos he had unleashed just take 00:23:48.049 --> 00:23:50.230 over the field. And these scientific disappointments 00:23:50.230 --> 00:23:52.529 were soon overshadowed by immense political and 00:23:52.529 --> 00:23:55.410 personal horrors, beginning in 1933 when the 00:23:55.410 --> 00:23:58.940 Nazis seized power. Planck was 74. His initial 00:23:58.940 --> 00:24:01.240 response, which was rooted in his traditional 00:24:01.240 --> 00:24:03.599 structuralist mindset, was to try and protect 00:24:03.599 --> 00:24:05.579 German science by maintaining the institutions 00:24:05.579 --> 00:24:08.720 he had built. Right. He continued as the president 00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:12.200 of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the KWG, and he 00:24:12.200 --> 00:24:14.460 urged scientists, even those being persecuted, 00:24:14.779 --> 00:24:17.059 to remain in Germany, hoping the regime would 00:24:17.059 --> 00:24:19.500 eventually moderate. He did, however, help his 00:24:19.500 --> 00:24:22.779 nephew, the economist Herman Cranald, emigrate 00:24:22.779 --> 00:24:25.660 to London after he was arrested. But his attempts 00:24:25.660 --> 00:24:28.440 to appeal to reason and logic with the Nazi regime 00:24:28.440 --> 00:24:31.599 were met with just brutal ideological dismissal. 00:24:31.680 --> 00:24:33.940 Tell us about the meeting with Hitler. In May 00:24:33.940 --> 00:24:37.079 1933, Planck sought an audience with Hitler and 00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:39.519 he didn't make a moral argument. He made a pragmatic, 00:24:39.640 --> 00:24:42.240 logical one. He argued that the forced emigration 00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:44.859 of Jewish scientists based on race would kill 00:24:44.859 --> 00:24:47.460 German science and that many Jewish people were 00:24:47.460 --> 00:24:50.039 loyal German citizens. And how did Hitler respond 00:24:50.039 --> 00:24:52.759 to this logical, pragmatic appeal from the most 00:24:52.759 --> 00:24:55.299 respected scientist in Germany? The response 00:24:55.299 --> 00:24:58.160 was absolute dismissal. Hitler curtly stated 00:24:58.160 --> 00:25:00.480 that the Jews are all communists and these are 00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:03.079 my enemies. He then reportedly became aggressive, 00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:05.799 forcing Planck to abandon the interview. Our 00:25:05.799 --> 00:25:07.880 source confirms that this encounter took from 00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:11.019 him every basis for further negotiation. He realized 00:25:11.019 --> 00:25:13.000 that rational negotiation was just impossible. 00:25:13.460 --> 00:25:16.259 Yet he continued subtle acts of resistance and 00:25:16.259 --> 00:25:19.799 defiance. When the exiled Jewish scientist Fritz 00:25:19.799 --> 00:25:23.259 Haber died in 1934. Planck, knowing the risk, 00:25:23.339 --> 00:25:25.740 organized an official public commemorative meeting 00:25:25.740 --> 00:25:27.859 for him in Berlin, which was described as being 00:25:27.859 --> 00:25:30.720 done in a somewhat provocative style. This defiance 00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:33.359 came at a cost. A huge cost. He was attacked 00:25:33.359 --> 00:25:35.759 fiercely by the proponents of Deutsche Physik, 00:25:35.759 --> 00:25:38.579 Aryan physics, who rejected the Jewish physics 00:25:38.579 --> 00:25:41.539 of relativity and quantum theory. Johannes Stark, 00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:43.880 a proponent of this movement, publicly labeled 00:25:43.880 --> 00:25:46.299 Planck, along with Einstein and Heisenberg, a 00:25:46.299 --> 00:25:48.920 white Jew. And he was eventually forced out of 00:25:48.920 --> 00:25:52.059 his KWG presidency. He clung to it until 1936, 00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:54.440 but the pressure became untenable. And throughout 00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:56.740 this period of institutional crisis, Planck was 00:25:56.740 --> 00:25:59.559 also enduring staggering personal loss that, 00:25:59.559 --> 00:26:01.859 I mean, that few human beings ever face. The 00:26:01.859 --> 00:26:04.619 tragedy began long before the Nazis. His first 00:26:04.619 --> 00:26:08.160 wife, Marie, died in 1909. His oldest son, Carl, 00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:10.940 was killed in action during World War I in 1916. 00:26:11.160 --> 00:26:13.000 Then his daughters. Then, in quick succession, 00:26:13.180 --> 00:26:15.099 both of his twin daughters died in childbirth. 00:26:15.549 --> 00:26:19.950 greet in 1917 and emma in 1919 and emma had married 00:26:19.950 --> 00:26:22.829 greets widower unbelievable flank endured all 00:26:22.829 --> 00:26:25.829 of this with this stoic old -school german reserve 00:26:25.829 --> 00:26:29.150 relying on his intellectual pursuits but the 00:26:29.150 --> 00:26:32.109 final most devastating blow came during the second 00:26:32.109 --> 00:26:35.009 world war inflicted directly by the political 00:26:35.009 --> 00:26:37.490 machinery he had tried so hard to either ignore 00:26:37.490 --> 00:26:41.089 or subtly influence his son erwin his youngest 00:26:41.089 --> 00:26:44.049 son erwin was arrested by the gestapo for involvement 00:26:44.049 --> 00:26:47.299 in the failed 20 July plot, the attempt to assassinate 00:26:47.299 --> 00:26:50.339 Hitler in 1944. And Planck was particularly close 00:26:50.339 --> 00:26:52.519 to him. Very. And the tragedy was compounded 00:26:52.519 --> 00:26:55.019 by the fact that Planck's Berlin home was destroyed 00:26:55.019 --> 00:26:57.500 in an air raid that same year, robbing him of 00:26:57.500 --> 00:26:59.619 his belongings and his papers. And the final 00:26:59.619 --> 00:27:01.960 blow. Erwin was sentenced to death and executed 00:27:01.960 --> 00:27:05.079 in January 1945 at Berlin's Plutzensee prison. 00:27:05.240 --> 00:27:07.839 This event, more than anything else, destroyed 00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:10.730 much of Planck's will to live. according to our 00:27:10.730 --> 00:27:13.029 sources. The man who had revolutionized the physical 00:27:13.029 --> 00:27:15.509 world and stabilized German science watched his 00:27:15.509 --> 00:27:17.789 closest remaining child murdered by the state 00:27:17.789 --> 00:27:20.029 simply for attempting to resist the madness. 00:27:20.470 --> 00:27:23.009 He survived the war by mere months, dying in 00:27:23.009 --> 00:27:26.309 Göttingen in October 1947, a figure of monumental 00:27:26.309 --> 00:27:28.710 achievement scarred by monumental suffering. 00:27:29.029 --> 00:27:32.049 As we reflect on his life, it is crucial to consider 00:27:32.049 --> 00:27:34.450 the philosophical bedrock that held Planck together 00:27:34.450 --> 00:27:37.490 through scientific revolution and personal ruin. 00:27:37.769 --> 00:27:39.819 He was a member of the Lutheran Church. but his 00:27:39.819 --> 00:27:44.220 religious views were complex. They were. They 00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:47.500 broadly fall into deism. He was a man who believed 00:27:47.500 --> 00:27:50.279 in the inherent order of the universe, but not 00:27:50.279 --> 00:27:53.019 necessarily in the specifics of organized religion. 00:27:53.279 --> 00:27:56.640 Right. When pressed, he stated clearly that he 00:27:56.640 --> 00:27:59.099 did not believe in a personal god, let alone 00:27:59.099 --> 00:28:01.700 a Christian god. He found his spiritual satisfaction 00:28:01.700 --> 00:28:04.160 in the structure and beauty of the universal 00:28:04.160 --> 00:28:06.960 loss. And he attempted to bridge the gap between 00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:09.599 his faith in science and his religious feeling 00:28:09.599 --> 00:28:13.400 in his important 1937 lecture, Religion and Natural 00:28:13.400 --> 00:28:16.680 Science. Yes, arguing that both disciplines ultimately 00:28:16.680 --> 00:28:19.140 require a form of belief in God, but they approach 00:28:19.140 --> 00:28:21.440 it from opposite ends. How so? For the traditional 00:28:21.440 --> 00:28:24.140 believer, God is the foundation, the starting 00:28:24.140 --> 00:28:27.099 point from which all reality flows. But for the 00:28:27.099 --> 00:28:29.420 physicist, he argued, God is at the opposite. 00:28:34.279 --> 00:28:37.099 So science searches for the physical laws and 00:28:37.099 --> 00:28:39.279 structure. And that structure ultimately points 00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:42.569 toward an ultimate intelligent order. And if 00:28:42.569 --> 00:28:44.970 he embraced the idea of a universal intelligence, 00:28:45.430 --> 00:28:48.589 he was highly critical of the dependence on miracles 00:28:48.589 --> 00:28:51.750 in organized religion. Oh, absolutely. He believed 00:28:51.750 --> 00:28:54.630 that the reliance on miracles must retreat step 00:28:54.630 --> 00:28:57.690 by step before relentlessly and reliably progressing 00:28:57.690 --> 00:29:00.349 science. He thought science was reliable. Miracles 00:29:00.349 --> 00:29:03.089 were not. Exactly. For Planck, miracles were 00:29:03.089 --> 00:29:05.569 simply temporary gaps in our understanding that 00:29:05.569 --> 00:29:08.049 would eventually vanish completely as knowledge 00:29:08.049 --> 00:29:10.690 advanced. This makes his final philosophical 00:29:10.690 --> 00:29:14.720 declaration. from a 1944 speech, Das Wesen der 00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:17.700 Materie, The Nature of Matter, all the more striking. 00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:20.559 It's an incredible statement. Here is the man 00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:23.359 who defined the purely empirical, non -deterministic 00:29:23.359 --> 00:29:25.859 structure of the atom, concluding his analysis 00:29:25.859 --> 00:29:28.420 with a spiritual observation. He stated, there 00:29:28.420 --> 00:29:31.299 is no matter, as such. All matter originates 00:29:31.299 --> 00:29:33.880 and exists only by virtue of a force which brings 00:29:33.880 --> 00:29:36.799 the particle of an atom to vibration. We must 00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:39.579 assume behind this force the existence of a conscious 00:29:39.579 --> 00:29:42.640 and intelligent spirit geist. This spirit is 00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:44.920 the matrix of all matter. Let's just stop and 00:29:44.920 --> 00:29:47.299 unpack that. After a lifetime of quantification, 00:29:47.500 --> 00:29:49.779 of pinning down the value of the action quantum 00:29:49.779 --> 00:29:53.079 to the most extreme decimal point, he concludes 00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:55.440 that the force holding those vibrating atoms 00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:58.299 together must be non -material and conscious. 00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:01.140 It's the ultimate convergence of the empiricist 00:30:01.140 --> 00:30:04.230 and the philosopher. Did Planck feel that science, 00:30:04.470 --> 00:30:06.849 in its absolute pursuit of the material world, 00:30:07.049 --> 00:30:10.529 had hit a hard wall, the limits defined by Hays, 00:30:10.710 --> 00:30:13.049 and thus required a non -material explanation 00:30:13.049 --> 00:30:16.210 for the continuous, coherent existence of structure 00:30:16.210 --> 00:30:18.670 he spent his life quantifying? He defined the 00:30:18.670 --> 00:30:20.950 physical rulebook. But concluded the author of 00:30:20.950 --> 00:30:23.750 that book must be a geist. His legacy, both scientific 00:30:23.750 --> 00:30:26.670 and institutional, endures. It's fitting that 00:30:26.670 --> 00:30:29.130 the institution he fought so hard to save, the 00:30:29.130 --> 00:30:32.009 Kaiser Wilhelm Society, was renamed the Max Planck 00:30:32.009 --> 00:30:34.589 Society in 1948, the year after his death. And 00:30:34.589 --> 00:30:37.589 it now oversees 83 scientific institutions, carrying 00:30:37.589 --> 00:30:40.150 his name as the standard bearer for German research. 00:30:40.349 --> 00:30:42.289 His name is permanently woven into the fabric 00:30:42.289 --> 00:30:44.869 of the universe. The Max Planck Medal, a lunar 00:30:44.869 --> 00:30:47.710 crater and valley named Planck, and as recently 00:30:47.710 --> 00:30:50.650 as 2022, the placement of his bust in Valhalla, 00:30:50.750 --> 00:30:53.849 the German Hall of Fame. The accidental revolutionary 00:30:53.849 --> 00:30:56.750 has taken his place among the giants. Hashtag 00:30:56.750 --> 00:30:59.450 outro. Max Planck's life stands as a testament 00:30:59.450 --> 00:31:02.569 to intellectual rigor forced into discontinuity. 00:31:02.869 --> 00:31:05.349 He was the staunch conservative who defined his 00:31:05.349 --> 00:31:07.789 career by seeking order and continuity, only 00:31:07.789 --> 00:31:10.690 to be forced by undeniable facts. First, the 00:31:10.690 --> 00:31:13.150 blackbody spectrum, then the failure of classical 00:31:13.150 --> 00:31:15.589 specific heat, to introduce the concept of the 00:31:15.589 --> 00:31:18.059 quantum, the fundamental break. into nature and 00:31:18.059 --> 00:31:20.119 this intellectual resilience was mirrored by 00:31:20.119 --> 00:31:22.599 his human fortitude he maintained the integrity 00:31:22.599 --> 00:31:24.920 of german science through two devastating wars 00:31:24.920 --> 00:31:27.180 all while enduring the stattering loss of his 00:31:27.180 --> 00:31:30.059 wife son and two daughters culminating in the 00:31:30.059 --> 00:31:32.700 political execution of his youngest son he was 00:31:32.700 --> 00:31:34.460 the upright man who found his personal order 00:31:34.460 --> 00:31:36.960 destroyed by political and scientific chaos this 00:31:36.960 --> 00:31:39.259 brings us back to the incredible tension he leaves 00:31:39.259 --> 00:31:42.589 us with We have the extreme precision of the 00:31:42.589 --> 00:31:46.329 empirical constant, a specific measurable number 00:31:46.329 --> 00:31:48.829 that defines the minimum measurable action in 00:31:48.829 --> 00:31:51.589 the universe, and his final philosophical declaration 00:31:51.589 --> 00:31:53.750 that the force maintaining the atomic vibration 00:31:53.750 --> 00:31:56.710 requires a conscious and intelligent spirit, 00:31:56.970 --> 00:31:59.890 the Geist. He was the ultimate empiricist driven 00:31:59.890 --> 00:32:03.009 by data to propose the formula E equals h nu, 00:32:03.190 --> 00:32:05.630 yet he concluded that the underlying reality 00:32:05.630 --> 00:32:08.369 of matter is conscious. So here's the question 00:32:08.369 --> 00:32:11.029 for you. If the ultimate scientific truth, the 00:32:11.029 --> 00:32:13.609 quantum constant h, defines the limits of our 00:32:13.609 --> 00:32:16.309 physical measurement, and Planck concluded a 00:32:16.309 --> 00:32:19.049 non -material geist lies beyond that limit, what 00:32:19.049 --> 00:32:21.349 does this dichotomy truly tell us about the ultimate 00:32:21.349 --> 00:32:23.769 limits of scientific knowledge and the possibility 00:32:23.769 --> 00:32:25.650 that the universe's structure is fundamentally 00:32:25.650 --> 00:32:28.740 conscious? Is it possible that the precise rules 00:32:28.740 --> 00:32:31.240 he spent his life quantifying are merely the 00:32:31.240 --> 00:32:33.920 observable manifestation of an underlying intelligent 00:32:33.920 --> 00:32:36.700 matrix? Something to mull over until our next 00:32:36.700 --> 00:32:37.200 deep dive.