Max Planck

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck ForMemRS[1] (English: /ˈplæŋk/,[2] German: [maks ˈplaŋk] ^ⓘ;[3] 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.[4]

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Max Karl Planck ForMemRS
Planck in 1930
Born	Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (1858-04-23)23 April 1858 Kiel, Duchy of Holstein, German Confederation
Died	4 October 1947(1947-10-04) (aged 89) Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Bizone, Allied-occupied Germany
Education	University of Munich, (PhD, 1879)
Known for	Quantum theory and See full List
Spouses	Marie Merck ​ ​ (m. 1887; died 1909)​ Marga von Hösslin ​ (m. 1911)​
Children	5
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physics for his quantum theory (1918) Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (1926) Lorentz Medal (1927) Copley Medal (1929) Max Planck Medal (1929) Goethe Prize (1945)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	University of Kiel University of Göttingen Kaiser Wilhelm Society
Thesis	Über den zweiten Hauptsatz der mechanischen Wärmetheorie (On the Second Principles of Mechanical Heat Theory) (1879)
Doctoral advisor	Alexander von Brill Gustav Kirchhoff Hermann von Helmholtz
Doctoral students	Erich Kretschmann Gustav Ludwig Hertz Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Max Abraham Max von Laue Moritz Schlick Walter Schottky Walther Bothe Walther Meissner Richard Becker
Other notable students	Wolfgang Köhler Lise Meitner
Signature

Special relativity
Principle of relativity Theory of relativity Formulations
Foundations Einstein's postulates Inertial frame of reference Speed of light Maxwell's equations Lorentz transformation
Consequences Time dilation Length contraction Relativistic mass Mass–energy equivalence Relativity of simultaneity Relativistic Doppler effect Thomas precession Relativistic disk Bell's spaceship paradox Ehrenfest paradox
Spacetime Minkowski spacetime Spacetime diagram World line Light cone
Dynamics Proper time Proper mass Four-momentum
History Precursors Galilean relativity Galilean transformation Aether theories
People Einstein Sommerfeld Michelson Morley FitzGerald Herglotz Lorentz Poincaré Minkowski Fizeau Abraham Born Planck von Laue Ehrenfest Tolman Dirac
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Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame as a physicist rests primarily on his role as the originator of quantum theory,[5] which revolutionized human understanding of atomic and subatomic processes. He is known for Planck's constant, which is of foundational importance for quantum physics, and which he used to derive a set of units, today called Planck units, expressed only in terms of fundamental physical constants.

Planck was twice president of the German scientific institution Kaiser Wilhelm Society. In 1948, it was renamed into Max Planck Society, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, and nowadays includes 83 institutions representing a wide range of scientific directions.