2013/07/08 by Galina Weinstein, Weinstein, Galina
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #Philosophy and History of Science #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Relativity and Gravitational Theory
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1307.2132
openalex publication_date 2013/07/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In 1905 the well-known physicist Max Planck was coeditor of the Annalen der Physik, and he accepted Einstein's paper on light quanta for publication, even though he disliked the idea of "light quanta". Einstein's relativity paper was received by the Annalen der Physik at the end of June 1905 and Planck was the first scientist to notice Einstein's relativity theory and to report favorably on it. In the 1905 relativity paper Einstein used a seemingly conventional notion, "light complex", and he did not invoke his novel quanta of light heuristic with respect to the principle of relativity. He chose the language "light complex" for which no clear definition could be given. But with hindsight, in 1905 Einstein made exactly the right choice not to mix concepts from his quantum paper with those from his relativity paper. He focused on the solution of his relativity problem, whose far-reaching perspectives Planck already sensed.