Max Planck Quotes

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• As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.

  Max Planck

  Science, Intelligent, Men

  "'Das Wesen der Materie' ('The Nature of Matter')". Speech in Florence, Italy,, 1944.

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• 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.

  Max Planck

  Science, Fundamentals, Matter

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• Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.

  Max Planck

  Nature, Science, Trying

  Max Planck (1933). “Where is science going?”

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• A 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.

  Max Planck

  Death, Truth, Growing Up

  Scientific Autobiography, and Other Papers "Scientific Autobiography" (1948) (translation by Frank Gaynor)

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• In all my research I have never come across matter. To me the term matter implies a bundle of energy which is given form by an intelligent spirit.

  Max Planck

  Intelligent, Matter, Energy

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  All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.

  Max Planck

  Inspirational, Science, Intelligent

  "Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them". Book by Clifford Pickover, April 16, 2008.

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• Every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being.

  Max Planck

  Wise, Wisdom, Faces

  Max Planck (1959). “The new science: 3 complete works: Where is science going? The universe in the light of modern physics; The philosophy of physics”

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• There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other.

  Max Planck

  Real, Science And Religion, Science Religion

  Max Planck (1959). “The new science: 3 complete works: Where is science going? The universe in the light of modern physics; The philosophy of physics”

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• Science advances one funeral at a time.

  Max Planck

  Science, Funeral, Mathematics

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• Truth never triumphs-its opponents just die out.

  Max Planck

  Triumph, Opponents, Dies

  "Max Planck and the Macro Wars" by Matthew Yglesias, www.slate.com. March 24, 2012.

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• Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part by itself... We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts.

  Max Planck

  Art, Cutting, Taught Us

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• Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'

  Max Planck

  Faith, Science, Temples

  Where is Science Going? epilogue (1932)

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• There is no matter as such—mind is the matrix of all matter.

  Max Planck

  Mind, Atoms, Matter

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• Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination.

  Max Planck

  Mean, Imagination, Experiments

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• I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness.

  Max Planck

  Fundamentals, Matter, Derivatives

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• What seems today inconceivable will appear one day, from a higher stand point, quite simple and harmonious.

  Max Planck

  Simple, One Day, Today

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• The scientist needs an artistically creative imagination.

  Max Planck

  Science, Imagination, Creative

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• There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. Every serious and reflective person realizes, I think, that the religious element in his nature must be recognized and cultivated if all the powers of the human soul are to act together in perfect balance and harmony. And indeed it was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls

  Max Planck

  Religious, Real, Thinking

  Max Planck (1959). “The new science: 3 complete works: Where is science going? The universe in the light of modern physics; The philosophy of physics”

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• New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment.

  Max Planck

  Lonely, Spring, Struggle

  Max Planck's address on the 25th anniversary of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft (January 1936) as quoted in Kristie Macrakis "Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany", 1993.

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• It was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.

  Max Planck

  Religious, Soul, Religion

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• Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view.

  Max Planck

  Knowledge, Science, Discovery

  Max Planck (1932). “Where is Science Going?”

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• Those [scientists] who dislike entertaining contradictory thoughts are unlikely to enrich their science with new ideas.

  Max Planck

  Science, Ideas, Scientist

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• Science progresses not by convincing the adherents of old theories that they are wrong, but by allowing enough time to pass so that a new generation can arise unencumbered by the old errors.

  Max Planck

  Errors, Progress, Enough Time

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• 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

  Intelligent, Curves, Light

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• An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.

  Max Planck

  Nature, Science, Answers

  Max Planck (2014). “Scientific Autobiography: and Other Papers”, p.58, Open Road Media

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