Max Planck als Mensch und Denker by Hans HartmannReview by: Ernest M. HenleyIsis, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Jun., 1960), p. 249Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/226883 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 249

HANS HARTMANN: Max Planck als Mensch und Denker. (Plinius-Biicher, Leben und Lehre Grosser Forscher, I.) 260 pp., front. Thun & Miinchen: Ott Verlag, 1958. Swiss Fr. 18.75; DM 13.30.

Max Planck was a great physicist, and the third revised edition of his biography by Hans Hartmann attempts to portray him as such. The thesis is developed in several distinct steps, none of which, however, give the reader a clear picture of the man's personality. Was he warm, easily befriended, or aloof? What was Max Planck's relationship to his family? None of these questions are really an- swered and only a small part of his per- sonal life is revealed. For example, one is told that his son Erwin was sentenced to death during World War II, and that Max Planck tried to have his sentence commuted, but nowhere in the book could I find the reason for his son's fate.

The author, who knew Max Planck for forty years, first describes briefly the highlights of the physicist's life, stressing his indebtedness and high re- gard for Helmholtz, his teacher. A bio- graphical account of his family tree fol- lows, with a longer chapter that relates his life to concurrent political events. However, a review of the decade when Hitler was in power is obviously miss- ing. Only his interview with the latter in 1933, in which he tried to defend his Jewish colleague F. Haber is brought out. His radio talks on the development of science in Germany and the influence of the "Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Wissenschaften," of

which he was president, are reproduced or extracted. These talks reveal that Max Planck was an intense nationalist, though he fully realized and valued the need for international cooperation in science.

In the following chapters we are given a brief history of Max Planck's works. Unfortunately they do not allow the reader to gain significant insight into his developmental thinking, which would have made the book valuable to physi- cists. These chapters include a vivid and interesting account of Max Planck's thoughts on the objectivity of research in science; good use is made therein of excerpts from his speeches and writings. Lastly, the author describes the Nobel laureate's attitude towards philosophy, particularly ethics, religion, and the re- lation of causality and free will.

Hartmann succeeds in giving the reader some idea of Max Planck's think- ing, which may perhaps be characterized by a quoted excerpt from Goethe trans- lated as "Only that is true which is fruitful." However, I found this sole existing biography of the father of quan- tum theory disappointing because it does not help the physicist gain any knowl- edge of the development of Planck's ideas, nor does it give the historian of science a full or satisfactory account of his life work. Its value would have been considerably enhanced for the latter and for the philosopher, by the use of refer- ences permitting the reader to find com- plete accounts of excerpted passages.

ERNEST M. HENLEY UJniversity of Washington, Seattle

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