Max Planck's famous lecture of 1900 expressed quantum theory in its essential form, but his statement was just the beginning. This volume features seventeen early papers that developed quantum theory into its modern form. These papers appeared from 1917 to 1926 and were written by the leading physicists of the early twentieth century.
The collection begins with Einstein's -On the Quantum Theory of Radiation, - an illuminating derivation of Planck's Law. Other important early papers by Ehrenfest, Bohr, Born, Van Vleck, Kuhn, and others prepared the way for the -turning point- in quantum...