Quote

This is one of man's oldest riddles. How can the independence of human volition be harmonized with the fact that we are integral parts of a universe which is subject to the rigid order of nature's laws?

Max Planck

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Max Planck
Age: 89 †
Born: 1858
Born: April 23
Died: 1947
Died: December 4
Physicist
Theoretical Physicist
University Teacher
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck
Planck
M.
Science
Independence
Facts
Parts
Harmonized
Order
Subject
Riddles
Nature
Laws
Volition
Human
Subjects
Integral
Humans
Law
Riddle
Men
Fact
Rigid
Universe
Oldest

More quotes by Max Planck

Image
Science advances one funeral at a time.
Max Planck
Image
The goal is nothing other than the coherence and completeness of the system not only in respect of all details, but also in respect of all physicists of all places, all times, all peoples, and all cultures.
Max Planck
Image
The man who cannot occasionally imagine events and conditions of existence that are contrary to the causal principle as he knows it will never enrich his science by the addition of a new idea.
Max Planck
Image
The scientist needs an artistically creative imagination.
Max Planck
Image
Those [scientists] who dislike entertaining contradictory thoughts are unlikely to enrich their science with new ideas.
Max Planck
Image
The Theory of Relativity confers an absolute meaning on a magnitude which in classical theory has only a relative significance: the velocity of light. The velocity of light is to the Theory of Relativity as the elementary quantum of action is to the Quantum Theory: it is its absolute core.
Max Planck
Image
The entire world we apprehend through our senses is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature.
Max Planck
Image
There can never be any real opposition between religion and science for the one is the complement of the other.
Max Planck
Image
Nature prefers the more probable states to the less probable because in nature processes take place in the direction of greater probability. Heat goes from a body at higher temperature to a body at lower temperature because the state of equal temperature distribution is more probable than a state of unequal temperature distribution.
Max Planck
Image
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness.
Max Planck
Image
The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry.
Max Planck
Image
It was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.
Max Planck
Image
The pioneer scientist must have a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by artistically creative imagination.
Max Planck
Image
We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.
Max Planck
Image
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force.
Max Planck
Image
Thus, the photons which constitute a ray of light behave like intelligent human beings: out of all possible curves they always select the one which will take them most quickly to their goal.
Max Planck
Image
Both religion and natural science require a belief in God for their activities, to the former He is the starting point, and to the latter the goal of every thought process. To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.
Max Planck
Image
Science does not mean an idle resting upon a body of certain knowledge it means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an end which the poetic intuition may apprehend, but which the intellect can never fully grasp.
Max Planck
Image
The spectral density of black body radiation ... represents something absolute, and since the search for the absolutes has always appeared to me to be the highest form of research, I applied myself vigorously to its solution.
Max Planck
Image
Scientific work will never stop, and it would be terrible if it did. If there were no more problems, you would put your hands in your pockets and your head on a pillow and would work no more. In science rest is stagnation, rest is death.
Max Planck