Curated playlist
Winners of the Max Planck Medal
- Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein once spent his days examining patents for gravel sorters.
- Enrico FermiEnrico Fermi won a Nobel Prize partly for new elements that were really fission products.
- Erwin SchrödingerErwin Schrödinger formulated his wave equation at a Swiss sanatorium in Arosa. He was ill with tuberculosis.
- Max PlanckMax Planck called his quantum idea "an act of despair." The cautious physicist launched quantum physics reluctantly.
- Werner HeisenbergA spy once carried a pistol to a Werner Heisenberg lecture, ready to shoot him. Moe Berg did not fire.
- Paul DiracPaul Dirac's 1928 equation predicted antimatter, and the positron appeared in 1932.
- Eugene WignerPhysicist Eugene Wigner found that neutron radiation could make the graphite in a reactor swell.
- Max BornMax Born won his 1954 Nobel Prize for work he finished nearly three decades earlier.
- Niels BohrNiels Bohr passed out in the bomb bay of a British plane over Norway. His flying helmet was too small for him to wear.
- Lev LandauPhysicist Lev Landau was jailed in 1938 over a leaflet comparing Stalinism to Nazism. A letter to Stalin freed him.
- Louis de BroglieCould matter behave like a wave, as light can behave like a particle? Louis de Broglie asked this in 1924.
- Peter DebyeA unit of measurement, a lunar crater and a minor planet all carry Peter Debye's name.