Max Planck. "Scientific Autobiography".

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I have reread the Planck’s article “Scientific Autobiography”.
It is a small article, but how honesty and modest,
wise and beautiful it is.
I cannot give a whole deep explanation of this article,
therefore I will concentrate attention on a small part of it.
1.
In the beginning Planck wrote, that " From young years…
the search of the laws, concerning to something absolute,
seemed to me the most wonderful task in scientist’s life."
And after some pages Planck wrote again, that
" the search for something absolute seemed to me the
most wonderful task for a researcher."
And after some pages Planck wrote again, that
“ the most wonderful scientific task for me was
searching of something absolute."
2.
And as for the relation between “relativity and absolute”
Planck wrote, that the fact of “relativity assumes the
existence of something absolute” ;
“the relativity has sense when something absolute resists it.”
Planck wrote that the phrase " all is relative " misleads us,
because it is nonsense, because there is something
absolute in SRT.
And the most attractive thing in SRT was for Planck
“to find something absolute that was hidden in its foundation.”
3.
And than Planck explained what there is absolute
in the physics:
a) The Law of conservation and transformation energy.
b) The negative 4D continuum.
c) The speed of light quanta.
d) The maximum entropy which is possible
at temperature of absolute zero: T=0K.
4.
My conclusion.
Dear Planck, if you live now many scientists
will consider you are a crazy man.
Many of them will not give you a hand.
Many of them will laugh at you.
Why?
Because you were convinced in existing of something Absolute.
Because you searched for Absolute all your life long.
And now it is forbidden to think about Absolute .
Now the search for absolute laws and objects
in Nature disappeared from the scientist’s brain.
Now the scientists say : " There isn’t an absolute frame,
There isn’t an absolute speed. There is nothing Absolute.
Everything is relativity. All is comparatively.”
You wrote:
“A 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.”
How a pity it is.
I want to hope that this sentence isn’t absolutely correct.
=====================.
P.S.
Does anybody know the website with
Max Planck’s “Scientific Autobiography”?
Thank you.

2

The only think I know about Planck is that my boss used to work at The Max Planck institute for the history of science or whatever in Berlin. She’s a crazy person. I can’t tell is she’s a relativist or not.

3

Abridged version of Peter Russell’s book ‘From Science to God’
/ Reality and Consciousness:/

twm.co.nz/prussell.htm