All World
Gayatri Pariwar

  Spiritual attitude induces ever-new enthusiasm and inspiration in a scientist’s inquisitive mind. If a scientist adopts a spiritual attitude towards existence, his research will be more purposeful and beneficial for the welfare of mankind and the world. Spiritual attitude of a scientist leads his findings towards benevolent goals.  Nobel Laureate Max Planck (b. 1858 – d. 1947) was among the scientists of this distinct caliber whose highly gifted genius never lost sight of spirituality in the glitter of epochal scientific inventions and achievements.  

This great founder of Quantum Mechanics was always interested in borderline problems of physics and philosophy and published many addresses and articles in this domain. Planck was interested in Truth and Universe beyond observation, and objected to atheism as an obsession with symbols. At the same time he, despite being an ardent Christian, was against the Church organizations’ demands for unquestioning belief.  

He was averse to religious intolerance and also to the prevailing misconceptions on fate. In his views, as conveyed in a translation of his speeches on related topics,   “It is a dangerous act of self-delusion if one attempts to get rid of an unpleasant moral obligation by claiming that human action is the inevitable result of an inexorable law of nature. The human being who looks upon his own future as already determined by fate, or the nation that believes in a prophecy which states that its decline is inexorably decreed by a law of nature, only acknowledges a lack of will power to struggle and win through”.

Much like the rishis, the Indian scientists of spirituality, the God in which Max Planck believed was an Almighty, Omniscient, Benevolent but Transcendent Spirit that permeated everything, every manifestation of Nature, including the physical laws.

His views reflect the natural approach of scientific spirituality. For example, he writes in “Where Is Science Going?”   [Book by Max Planck, with a Prologue by Albert Einstein, Translation and biographical note by James Murphy; New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1932],— “We must admit that the mind of each one of our greatest geniuses — Aristotle, Kant or Leonardo, Goethe or Beethoven, Dante or Shakespeare — even at the moment of its highest flights of thought or in the most profound inner workings of the soul, was subject to the causal fiat and was an instrument in the hands of an Almighty law which governs the world.”

Max Planck (baptized name: Karl Ernst Ludwig Max Planck) was born in Kiel to Johann Julius Wilhelm Planck and his second wife, Emma Patzig. His was a traditional, intellectual family. His paternal great-grandfather and grandfather were both Professors of Theology at Gottingen, Germany. His father was a Professor of Law at Kiel and Munich. His paternal uncle was a judge.

Little Max was born with sharp intellect and creative talents. Music was his first love but Physics fascinated him, too. He was curious to know about the universe and wondered about who would have created it? His grandfather often used to encourage his quest and inspire him to look deeper into the depths of the phenomena of Nature. Perhaps, his theological views had motivated Planck’s brilliant mind to look at a unified force working behind every activity of Nature, even the tiniest particle of matter existing in it.

His creative approach to science is so finely articulated in one of his articles, where he says (translated version of original German text) – “Science means unflinching endeavor and continually progressing development towards an objective, which the poet’s intuition may comprehend, but the scientist's intellect can never fully grasp…”  

After his early education at Kiel till 1874, Max Planck pursued his higher studies at Munich and obtained a doctorate (Ph. D.) in Physics from University of Munich at the age of 21. His thesis was titled “Über den zweiten Hauptsatz der mechanischen Wärmetheorie (On the second fundamental theorem of the mechanical theory of heat). He continued his fundamental research in Thermodynamics and related areas of Theoretical Physics. He obtained many important results and became a full professor at the University of Berlin in 1892.  Noted scientists and theologians like Albert Einstein and Adolf von Harnack were among his close friends there.

While working on a project to produce maximum light from light bulbs with minimum energy, he turned his attention to the problem of “Black-body Radiations”: How does the intensity of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black-body (a perfect absorber) depend on the frequency (e.g. color of light) of the radiation and the temperature of the body?” The question was posed by Kirchoff way back in 1859 and had been explored experimentally, but no theoretical treatment agreed with experimental values, despite the dedicated attempts of many contemporary scientists.  Planck too had tried out several solutions – including the Wien-Plank law, but much to his frustration nothing could convincingly explain the experimental observations.

In a mood of despair one evening he sat alone in the living room and started playing his piano. He was truly gifted when it came to music. In school days itself he took singing lessons and played piano, organ and cello, and composed songs and operas. So much so, that his Physics professor Philipp von Jolly himself had advised Max against going into Physics, saying, “in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes.” Planck replied that he did not wish to discover new things, he wanted only to deeply understand the knowable fundamentals of the field.

His creative talent in music flourished along with his deeper studies and research in the dry subject like Physics. Music was much more than only a means of recreation for him. His family (wife Marie Merck and children: sons Karl and Erwin and twin daughters Emma and Grete) also used to enjoy his and his friends’ musical performances. Often on the weekends the Planck home used to appear like a social and cultural centre. Several of his friends (mostly scientists and Professors at the university) used to visit them and participate in the mini-musical programmes. Well, so it was not new for his family to find him engrossed in playing his piano.

But, that day was somewhat distinct. His eagerness to resolve the research problem that was sitting in his head since several years, coupled with a feeling of despair – due to failure of all thorough efforts so far - was making a special effect. Along with the music he also got immersed in the memories of his father and grandfather. Their photographs were kept in the living room and he often used to tell his children the stories of his childhood, especially about his grandfather’s theological lessons. Couple of times he had also experienced that his grandfather was ‘preaching’ him in dreams.  

Memories of his grandfather and the intense flow of piano’s melody that evening seemed to have taken his heart into the sublime realms of Nature. He experienced unique joy. He did not realize when he felt asleep. In the dream he found himself in a pool of light.  There was serene music of Nature in absolute silence. He then saw his grandfather, whose face also appeared as emitting light. He heard as though his grandfather was telling him – “Look Max, everything is made up of subtle energy-particles, whether it is an element of matter or light. These energy-particles flow continuously at a fixed rate.”

He woke up suddenly after the dream, full of new energy and ideas. He could not sleep any more that night. He also reached the university much early next morning and started working on his papers. The dream sparked a ‘scientific intuition’ in his mind, some words echoed in his mind sounding like “fixed quantity”, “common energy”, etc. His sharp and prepared brain, which was so thorough in analyzing different aspects of energy-radiation, got it right. “Yes it must be that energy moves in fixed quantity” - he hypothesized. He modified his earlier theory and jotted down new formulae. His new theory described the experimentally observed black-body spectrum well.

The central assumption behind this new derivation, presented to the DPG on 14 December 1900, was the supposition that energy could be emitted only in quantized form, in other words, energy could only be a multiple of an elementary unit (called ‘quantum’). This is what formed the basis of Quantum Mechanics, which gave new direction to Physics and scientific and technological research and developments thereafter.

Science has advanced a long trajectory since Planck’s Quantum Theory and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  But the goal of deciphering the Nature and unfolding the ultimate Truth is still far from sight a century later. A holistic approach synthesizing spirituality along with integration of natural and social sciences would be the best option in the new millennium to proceed in the right direction towards plumbing deeper depths of reality.

Perhaps Max Planck also envisaged it when he wrote — “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness” [c.f. The Observer, January 25, 1931].

Planck also perceived the eternal bond between natural sciences and spirituality, as he remarked — “Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists, He is at end of all considerations… To the former, He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view”. [c.f.  Religion and Natural Science –lecture given in 1937; published in Max Planck’s “Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers” translated by F. Gaynor, New York, 1949; pg 184].