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Planck's principle

Planck's principle proper noun: the view that “science progresses one funeral at a time”, that scientific progress happens when older generations of scientists retire or die.

Proper noun

Planck's principle

  1. The view that “science progresses one funeral at a time”, that scientific progress happens when older generations of scientists retire or die.
    • However, Planck's Principle turns out to be wrong. This can be seen through a careful examination of the work of Charles Darwin. The quintessential phase transition in science, and paradigm shift, is that of the theory of evolution by natural selection.2012, Samuel Arbesman, The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date, Penguin, →ISBN

Origin of Planck's principle

Formulated by Max Planck.

Questions about Planck's principle

What does Planck's principle mean?
Planck's principle means the view that “science progresses one funeral at a time”, that scientific progress happens when older generations of scientists retire or die.
What part of speech is Planck's principle?
Planck's principle is a proper noun.

Words near Planck's principle in the dictionary

  1. Planck voltage
  2. Planck voltages
  3. Planck volume
  4. Planck volumes
  5. Planck's constant
  6. Planck's principle
  7. Planckian
  8. planckon
  9. planckons
  10. Plancks
  11. Plancoët

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Planck's principle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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