著者

KONAGAYA Daisuke

出版者

日本科学史学会

雑誌

Historia scientiarum. Second series : international journal of the History of Science Society of Japan (ISSN:02854821)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.12, no.1, pp.43-58, 2002-07-30

参考文献数

29

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Max Planck(1858-1947) introduced energy quanta into his radiation theory in December 1900. Energy quanta, together with Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, heralded the beginning of today's physics. Although Planck differed from Einstein in being a completely classical physicist, he successfully introduced this non-classical conception into his theory. Why was it that Planck had worked out it in his heat radiation theory? In order to approach this question, we will focus on the formulation of the "electromagnetic entropy" of a resonator in the theory and argue Planck's method of radiation theory had both inductive and deductive aspects. His method was inductive because he always defined the formula of entropy so that the experimentally confirmed spectral distribution law of radiation energy could be derived from it, and also deductive because he derived some important mathematical formulas from classical electromagnetic and thermodynamic theories. The method was different from those of other researchers on heat radiation at the time, those of not only theoretical but also experimental physicists. Planck did take the original theoretical induction of the entropy concept from experimental results and derive his radiation law. The present article first outlines the paper Planck presented on May 18, 1899, focusing on how he treated the entropy formula. It then reconsiders the origin of the formula for entropy as postulated in previous studies, concluding with a discussion of Planck's radiation research method and its historical significance.