Abstract
PROF. MAX PLANCK was awarded the Nobel prize for physics this year, and his address1 on the occasion of receiving it makes extraordinarily interesting reading. He describes in some detail the way in which he was led to the discovery of the quantum, and to anyone engaged in research the description will be very encouraging, for it shows through what darkness the mind of a great discoverer must grope, and what false tracks he will follow, before he sees the light of the truth. At the time of his discovery few physicists would seem to have appreciated the fundamental importance of the unknown relation connecting the energy of radiation with its wavelength and temperature, perhaps because this relation can be obtained only by a denial of some of I the chief articles of their scientific creed. Thus the late Lord Rayleigh had already stated correctly the radiation formula as it ought to be—and as it is for the longer wave-lengths; but he does not appear to have attempted to explain its hopeless failure in the region of the visible spectrum and beyond. The rival formula was that of Wien, far less sound theoretically, but giving good agreement with observation in the visible spectrum.
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The Quantum Theory. Nature 106, 508–509 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/106508a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/106508a0