Abstract
Planck's famous communication of December 1900 cannot be understood without taking into account an essential difference between his and Boltzmann's conceptions of the relation between micro- and macro-world. For Boltzmann, macroscopic laws were in principle completely determined by the underlying microscopic dynamics. For Planck, the microscopic dynamics were partly undetermined and had to be supplemented by additional assumptions in order to reach macroscopic laws.Thanks to this leeway, Planck could introduce finite energy-elements and derive his famous black-body law without giving up the continuity and determinism of former dynamical theories. The purpose of this paper is to explain the origins, peculiarities, and evolution of Planck's approach; to show how it ultimately yielded the correct black-body law; and to examine the status of the energy-elements which Planck thereby introduced.
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