Planck's Philosophical Essays in English P2P Custom Ed. Vols. 1-5 [1908-1948]

This html file is a collage of 5 books, representing a 5 volumes [UL] 'series' of Max Planck's essays on the philosophy of physics available in English on P2P venues. Each book was sourced from Library Genesis, djvu files (see sources md5 in the Commentary 'field'). Each file was processes as described in the 'Commentary' field, in order to produce a pdf and an html, which at its turn, stood at the basis of an epub. All are available on Library Genesis (see md5s bellow). For ease of identification, the 'edition' field is marked 'Planck Philosophical Essays in English P2P Custom Ed Vx [UL]'. The collated 5 books exist only in html. In approximate chronological order, the 'series' (and the collated html) comprise of: 1. Earlier than 1922: A Survey of Physical Theory [orig Ger. ed. 1922; 1st En. ed. 1925; used ed. repr. 1960 or later n.d.] File: Planck Philosophical Essays in English P2P Custom ed. Vol. 1. Earlier than 1922 [A Survey of Physical Theory][UL] Library Genesis md5s: 4c34e2a6d3572830922b6a5aa0c59faa (pdf), ab5753e17be826a1a0c44f469a50fbef (epub), 3cd923577ea9d680c6d82b53de83c066 (html/zip). 2. Later than 1922, earlier than 1933: The Philosophy of Physics [orig. Ger. ed. 1933; 1st En. ed. 1936; used ed. repr. 1963] File: Planck Philosophical Essays in English P2P Custom ed. Vol. 2. Later than 1922, Earlier than 1933 [The Philosophy of Physics][UL] Library Genesis md5s: 8af14b8170b2b2fd9233e7f206218f3d (pdf), 797b64b6624fa94ada3a489cdf63bc08 (epub), 448559b8d187c4fb3ddf9db5b8e99be3 (html/zip). 3. 1926, 1929: The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics [orig. Ger. ed. 1926, 1929; 1st En. ed. & used ed. 1931] File: Planck Philosophical Essays in English P2P Custom ed. Vol. 3. 1926, 1929 [The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics][UL] Library Genesis md5s: a9bf6dced85582170185da9e25391fe4 (pdf), b77c4fd99cdf7773e41174e52b41cc4d (epub), 9eb3020448b09729f8ed39a976a6060c (html/zip). 4. Earlier than 1932: Where Is Science Going? [orig. Ger. ed. undetermined; 1st En. ed. & used ed. 1932] File: Planck Philosophical Essays in English P2P Custom ed. Vol. 4. Earlier than 1932 [Where Is Science Going][UL] Library Genesis md5s: 44046217c8758798432b2acb8b415227 (pdf), 12d3be61fd4206f6d2ebe5f542b2cb99 (epub), 4cebea913c0091cb54ccd07d07d9ba70 (html/zip). 5. 1947, 1948: Scientific Autobiography And Other Papers [orig. Ger. eds. 1947, 1949; 1st En ed. 1950; used ed. n.d.] File: Planck Philosophical Essays in English P2P Custom ed. Vol. 5. 1947, 1949 [Scientific Autobiography And Other Papers][UL] Library Genesis md5s: 9578b3a1ff8d6ba629a964da13bf37c1 (pdf), 6d3aa1601c8c3330951ac1b3917efbd9 (epub), af4c88857283f5a8c5c18d096a71fe14 (html/zip). For details, see the 'About' section at the end of each book's section in the present html (or in the respective epub/html files; for pdfs, 'Properties' for an abridged information). Custom cover image credit: Maria Aguilar Balsells, Guatemala, 'Nueva Percepcion Max Planck', Mixed Media, from LinusGallery.com. *** In Lieu of Foreword ‹‹There stands Planck, at the very beginning of the "new science" of quantum mechanics... Since the XVIth century, physics has been the keystone of the scientific worldview: realism, rationalism, enlightenment - all the good philosophical stuff which helped men to Stoically withstand arbitrary power, personal vicissitude, and makes human life a living in rectitude, pride, optimism. Physics, and following it the rest of science, carried with it a metaphysical promise and, indeed, an ethical and axiological promise: man can know nature, and this knowing will make man a better creature. Today, all this is blowing in the wind... Instead of enlightenment, thanks to a large extent to Bohr's politics, the "new science" has unleashed a new age of esotericism and obscurantism... Mass-made academic physicists and philosophers will have you believe how "magical" quantum mechanics is. Yet, in approximate inverse chronological order, "many minds" after "many worlds" after "many dimensions" after "tunelling" after "retrocausality" after "spooky action at a distance" after "quantum leaps" after turning the measurement problem into the "mystery of the conscious observer" - all of these, are not innocent poetic licenses for things we understand, but expressions of the failure of the understanding of reality at the subatomic levels, dressed in a cartoonish surrealist/mystical cloth... None of the colporteurs of the "new science" will have you know this: "I don't know" does not bring fame, money or, for the lowliest, tenure... Sure, the mathematical formalism works here and there: but so works whatever neural machinery the beaver is using to build its dams, or the termites to build their mounds... Neither will pretend to understand either hydrodynamics or engineering, would they?... But then, nor would Mermin's "shut up and calculate" crowd... Is mathematics just extended phenotype? Is physical understanding just the expression of our adaptations to grasp reality within a limited, narrow band of scale, magnitudes, frequencies (a.k.a. "perspectival" as Nietzsche and Heidegger would have it)? Is the "new science", after Copernicanism, Darwinism and Freudism, another, and the last stage of man's demotion to a new level of insignificance?... I don't know... But if anybody has a clue to the above questions, if anyone knows anything worth knowing about these issues, then this must be Planck. Among the heavy-weight physicists who ventured in these philosophical quicksands, none is better placed: a man of the "world of yesterday" of Stefan Zweig, yet breaking the ground of the quantum action, sensible to the soothing quality of universal truths in the face of adversity, exploring for several decades these narrow roads in an ever renewed attempt at making the "new science" and our concept of reality connect - with all that follows from it in terms of man's self understanding. Somewhere in his essays there may be a glimpse, a clue, a track, an opening; unremarked before, passed un-noticed, lost in translation - for the unorthodox, awkward, de-phased reader to find... If there isn't, the odds are that no such passage exists, whatever the peddlers of physics hype are selling: human understanding will forever remain confined by its evolved "perspectival" exoskeleton which it can never outgrow albeit, from within it, it can "work" on the outer reality with the pincers of formalism and the paws of engineering. Maybe, on occasion, as far as Mars; but essentially stuck in the 10^1 km smelly biospherical soup in which chance had it evolve...›› A. M. Arsian