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Einstein, Specific Heats, and the Early Quantum Theory Author(S): Martin J Einstein, Specific Heats, and the Early Quantum Theory Author(s): Martin J. Klein Source: Science, New Series, Vol. 148, No. 3667 (Apr. 9, 1965), pp. 173-180 Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1715511 . Accessed: 02/08/2013 11:35 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Science. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 2 Aug 2013 11:35:45 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 9 April 1965, Volume 148, Number 3667 SCIENCE them also to realize the impossibility of getting along by means of half- way measures. Planck himself was a conservative thinker, but he was com- pletely convinced that physicists would Einstein, Specific Heaits, have to accept and incorporate into their future theories a fundamental dis- and the Quantum Theory continuity of the energy, even though Early it meant giving up something as basic as the Hamiltonian differential equa- Einstein's quantum theory of specific heat first shovved tions of motion (5). He was by no means sure, however, that the time was the power of the new concept of energy quarlta. quite ripe for a general acceptance of this idea of quanta. Somewhat bitter . had him Martin J. Klei personal experience taught that the partisans of a scientific theory are not so easily convinced by rational argument as they ought to be, and that his own estimate of the importance During the month of June 1911 tion with pleasure. "TIhe whole enter- of a problem was not always widely some 25 of Europe's most eminent prise is unusually applealing to me," shared (6). This attitude had prompt- physicists received invitations to take he wrote, "and I har-dly doubt that ed his negative response to Nernst's part in a select international confer- you are its soul" (2). first tentative proposal for such a meet- ence whose purpose it would be to The opening lines of Solvay's let- ing the previous year. In Planck's view confront the scientific crisis provoked ter, based on a draft by Nernst (3), the necessary precondition for the con- by the quantum theory (1). The in- stated some of the diifficulties facing ference was a widespread feeling that vitations were sent by Ernest Solvay, physics. the current defective state of physical the industrial chemist who theory was "intolerable-for every Belgian According to all appe had made a fortune with his new now irI the midst of a ]new development true theorist," a feeling that would process for manufacturing sodium car- of the principles on which the classical draw these true theorists to seek coun- bonate and who used his millions to kinetic-molecular theory of matter was sel together. But in 1910, at least, based. The de, of this he support a variety of worthy causes. systematic velopment doubted that such sharp feelings theory leads, on the one hand, to a radia- Solvay had an amateur's interest in the tion formula that disagrees with all ex- were widely enough shared as yet; he basic questions of physics, but it must perimental results; from this same theory thought, in fact, that only a few others have been apparent to the recipients are deduced, on the otherr hand, assertions -like Einstein, Lorentz, Wien, and of his letter that not even the most on the subject of specificc heats . that Larmor-saw the urgency of these are likewise refuted measure- devoted amateur could have by many questions. He had no question about planned ments. It has been shovvn, especially by the agenda, chosen the membership, Planck and Einstein, that these contradic- the urgency in his own mind, of or indeed realized the urgency of the tions disappear if one s(ets certain limits course. "For I can say without exag- problems for which the meeting was on the motions of electtrons and atoms geratlon," he wrote to Nernst, "that to be convened. It did not take much oscillating about an equilibrium position for ten years, without interruption, of but this (the principle energy quanta); nothing in physics has so searching to locate the origin of the interpretation in turn d[eparts so much basically force that had directed Solvay's en- from the equations of m otion used up to stimulated me, agitated me, and ex- thusiastic philanthropy, since Solvay's now that its acceptance Nwould necessarily cited me as these quanta of action" letter asked that all replies be ad- and indisputably entail ai vast reform of (7). dressed to Professor Walther Nernst our current fundamental theories. in Berlin. Among those who immedi- A decade had alread y gone by since ately recognized the role of the famous Max Planck had intiroduced energy Planck's Radiation Formula German physical chemist was Albert quanta into physics in1 his successful Einstein, then professor at Prague, who attempt to derive the correct descrip- Einstein was surely the one physicist wrote to Nernst accepting the invita- tion of the measured black-body ra- about whom Planck did not have to diation spectrum (4). It had taken worry. Einstein, early and independent- The author is professor of physics at Case much of that decade fo or even the initi- ly, had recognized the real inevitability Institute of Technology, Cleveland, Ohio. This ates he of of the incorrect radiation article was read to the History of Science So- to experience t impact hopelessly ciety in Montreal, 29 December 1964. Planck's radical depaLrture and for formula that followed from classical 9 APRIL 1965 173 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 2 Aug 2013 11:35:45 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions physics, and he had seen further, by formed in 1911. His views on the cor- Einstein's View of Quanta far, into the implications of Planck's puscular properties of radiation were correct radiation formula than anyone sufficiently heretical that there was no Einstein's attitude toward the con- else, including Planck himself (8, 9). great rush of attempts to put them cept of quanta differed sharply from It is not quite true to say that Planck to the test of experiment. Planck's. Planck had quantized the did not have to worry about Einstein: When the list of subjects to be energy of a charged oscillator inter- Einstein's views did concern him, but treated at the Solvay conference was acting with electromagnetic radiation that was because Planck thought they drawn up, probably by Nernst and in order to justify, to derive, the radia- went much too far. Planck had no Planck with revisions by H. A. tion formula he had proposed, a for- doubt that his own new constant h, Lorentz, who was to preside, Einstein's mula he already knew to be in agree- and the discreteness of the energy that ideas on the structure of radiation ment with experiment. The energy its introduction implied, would be in- were not on the agenda. Solvay's let- quanta, whose magnitude had to be corporated into the fundamental the- ter of invitation listed the principal proportional to the frequency of the ory of the future, but he was not at subjects to be discussed, and appropri- oscillator for thermodynamic reasons, all ready to accept the startling con- ate individuals were asked to prepare gave Planck a first suggestion of what clusions that Einstein claimed to have written reports on them. These reports the constant h in his radiation formula drawn from the radiation formula. would be distributed to all members might signify. (He had been con- For Einstein had argued, as early of the conference well in advance of vinced from the outset that this con- as 1905, that the observed form of the the meeting and were intended to pro- stant would take its rightful place with spectral distribution of black-body ra- vide a basis for the discussions to take the velocity of light, the gravitational diation forced a radical revision of ac- place at Brussels. The plans for the constant, and the electronic charge as cepted ideas on the nature of radi- meeting called for reports on both the the fundamental natural constants.) ation (10). Even without having a classical theory of the key problems (13). Planck saw the quantization of real theory of radiation, and guided and their modifications according to the oscillator's energy as the way to only by his incomparable insight into the ideas of the new quantum theory. achieve the radiation law; he would the statistical meaning of the second Thus Lorentz was to discuss the ap- have avoided even that radical step if law of thermodynamics, he asserted plication of the equipartition theorem he could have, but he certainly did not that electromagnetic radiation must to radiation with its disastrous impli- want to abandon any more of the es- show a granular structure. Despite all cation of the Rayleigh-Jeans distribu- tablished structure of theory than he the evidence for the wave theory of tion, and Planck would report on his absolutely had to.
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