PLANCK'S QUANTUM THEORY OF THE FIRST TWO DECADES: HISTORICO–CRITICAL REFLECTIONES

Abstract

While the role played by Planck's theory of black body radiation in the birth of quantum physics is wellknown, on the contrary his continuous quantistic theoretical work during the first two decades of this century is still obscure. In order to correctly understand this theoretical work, it is necessary to insert some basic questions: a) what are the specific original features of this theoretical construction? b) is it reasonable to consider this quantistic theory as different from contemporary old quantum theory? c) what is its contribution to the birth of quantum mechanics? Here an attempt will be made to examine the first and partially the second question. The thesis is that some basic statements of his epistemology, specifically a strong realistic view about scientific knowledge and the conviction that evolution of phyisics has a unifying trend, strongly influenced his creative theoretical process. The principle of elementary disorder, with its ambiguous nature, allows this strong connection. Conclusively it is necessary to keep persistent positivistic historiography at a distance, in order to follow a different historiography attentive to the trasformative processes generated by ideas which are not completely translated in the formal apparatus. 83