Max Planck
1858–1947 · German theoretical physicist
Topics: learning, physics, creativity, simplicity
We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.
— Max PlanckIt is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.
— Max PlanckEnergy remains constant and entropy always grows and can never be reduced... [T]his is the essence of the second law of thermodynamics...the entropy of a system of bodies can... only increase.
— Max PlanckNew scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment.
— Max PlanckThe first and most important quality of all scientific ways of thinking must be the clear distinction between the outer object of observation and the subjective nature of the observer.
— Max PlanckAnybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with.
— Max PlanckI generally always turned my interest to questions which possibly lead to a simplification... of theoretical physics.
— Max PlanckScience cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
— Max PlanckAgain and again the imaginary plan on which one attempts to build up that order breaks down and then we must try another. This imaginative vision and faith in the ultimate success are indispensable. The pure rationalist has no place here.
— Max PlanckA new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
— Max Planck