Editing Max Planck (section)

== Early life and education ==

Planck came from a traditional, intellectual family. His paternal great-grandfather and grandfather were both theology professors in [[University of Göttingen|Göttingen]]; his father was a law professor at the [[University of Kiel]] and [[Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich|Munich]]. One of his uncles was also a judge.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W3GvwcZEYwsC&q=max+planck+move+munich&pg=PT5|title=Max Planck: Revolutionary Physicist|last=Weir|first=Jane|date=2009|publisher=Capstone|isbn=978-0-7565-4073-9|language=en}}</ref>

Planck was born in 1858 in [[Kiel]], [[Holstein]] (now [[Schleswig-Holstein]]), to Johann Julius Wilhelm Planck and his second wife, Emma Patzig. He was baptized with the name of ''Karl Ernst Ludwig Marx Planck''; of his given names, ''[[Marx (given name)|Marx]]'' was indicated as the [[Vorname|"appellation name"]].<ref>Christoph Seidler, [http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,549404,00.html ''Gestatten, Marx Planck''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629070656/http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,549404,00.html |date=29 June 2011 }}, Spiegel Online, 24 April 2008</ref> However, by the age of ten he signed with the name ''Max'' and used this for the rest of his life.<ref>[https://www.mpg.de/560620/pressemitteilung20080424 Press release] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091018023747/http://mpg.de/bilderBerichteDokumente/dokumentation/pressemitteilungen/2008/pressemitteilung20080424/index.html|date=18 October 2009}} of the [[Max Planck Society]] about Max Planck's name.</ref>

He was the sixth child in the family, though two of his siblings were from his father's first marriage. War was common during Planck's early years and among his earliest memories was the marching of [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussian]] and [[Austrian Empire|Austrian]] troops into Kiel during the [[Second Schleswig War]] in 1864.<ref name=":0" /> In 1867 the family moved to [[Munich]], and Planck enrolled in the Maximilians [[gymnasium (school)|gymnasium]] school. There, his mathematical talents emerged early<ref>{{Cite web |title=Max Planck {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/science-and-technology/physics-biographies/max-planck |access-date=2024-05-08 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Brandon R. |url= |title=Planck: Driven by Vision, Broken by War |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-021947-5 |pages=14 |language=en}}</ref> and he later came under the tutelage of Hermann Müller, a mathematician who took an interest in the youth, and taught him [[astronomy]] and [[mechanics]] as well as [[mathematics]]. It was from Müller that Planck first learned the principle of conservation of energy. Planck graduated early, at age 17.<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica: Max Planck''</ref> This is how Planck first came in contact with the field of physics.

Planck was gifted when it came to [[music]]. He took singing lessons and played piano, organ and cello, and composed songs and operas. However, instead of music he chose to study [[physics]].

Planck enrolled at the [[University of Munich]] in 1874. Under professor [[Philipp von Jolly]]'s supervision, Planck performed the only experiments of his scientific career, studying the [[diffusion]] of [[hydrogen]] through heated [[platinum]], but transferred to [[theoretical physics]]. Jolly advised Planck against going into theoretical physics. Planck recalls that in 1878, Jolly argued that physics was almost complete, being a "highly developed, nearly fully matured science, that through the crowning achievement of the discovery of the principle of conservation of energy will arguably soon take its final stable form".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wells |first=James D. |date=2016-03-06 |title=Prof. von Jolly's 1878 prediction of the end of theoretical physics as reported by Max Planck |url=http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/163719 |journal=Scholardox |hdl=2027.42/163719 |language=}}</ref>

In 1877, he went to the [[Humboldt University of Berlin|Friedrich Wilhelms University]] in Berlin for a year of study with physicists [[Hermann von Helmholtz]] and [[Gustav Kirchhoff]] and mathematician [[Karl Weierstrass]]. He wrote that Helmholtz was never quite prepared, spoke slowly, miscalculated endlessly, and bored his listeners, while Kirchhoff spoke in carefully prepared lectures which were dry and monotonous. He soon became a close friend with Helmholtz. While there he undertook a program of mostly self-study of [[Rudolf Clausius|Rudolf Clausius's]] writings, which led him to choose [[thermodynamics]] as his field.

In October 1878, Planck passed his qualifying exams and in February 1879 defended his dissertation ''Über den zweiten Hauptsatz der mechanischen Wärmetheorie'' (''On the Second Law of Mechanical Heat Theory''). He briefly taught mathematics and physics at his former school in Munich.

By the year 1880, Planck had obtained the two highest academic degrees offered in Europe. The first was a doctorate degree after he completed his paper detailing his research and theory of thermodynamics.<ref name=":0" /> He then presented his thesis called ''Gleichgewichtszustände isotroper Körper in verschiedenen Temperaturen'' (''Equilibrium states of isotropic bodies at different temperatures''), which earned him a [[habilitation]].