Joint ICTP_SISSA_Democritos Univ. Special Lecture 20/01/10

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JOINT ICTP-SISSA-Democritos-University

Special Lecture

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*11:00, Wednesday, 20 January 2010*

*Main Lecture Hall, Leonardo Building, ICTP*

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*Professor Manuel Cardona*

*Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Research*

*Stuttgart, Germany*

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*Max Planck---a Conservative Revolutionary*

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Max Planck is one the most influential physicists of the early 20th 
century, being considered by some historians as the father of quantum 
theory and thus of modern physics, a role he shared with his colleague 
and friend Albert Einstein. In this talk the biography of Max Planck, 
and the tragic aspects of his life, will be discussed, not only from a 
personal point of view but also as a witness and immediate actor of the 
cataclysmic events that characterized European history during the first 
part of the 20^th century. In spite of his profound Prussian 
nationalism, Max Planck did not adhere to the madness propagated by the 
Nazis, but nevertheless he failed to realize their danger and brutality, 
considering their appearance like a natural catastrophe that would 
subside in due course. He paid dearly for this misjudgment: his beloved 
son Erwin was executed in 1945 as one of the participants in the 
unsuccessful conspiracy against Hitler. At the end of the war, having 
reached the age of 88, he was called to duty again and played an 
important role in the rebirth of German science after the total collapse.