Max Planck Planck,MaX(1858-1947) German physicist who formulated an equation describing the blackbody spectrum in 1900 Wien and Rayleigh had also developed equations, but Wien' s only worked at high frequencies, and Rayleigh's only worked at low frequencies. Planck's spectrum was obtained by postulating that energy was directly proportional to frequency(E=hy) Planck believed that this quantization applied only to the absorption and emission of energy by matter not to electromagnetic waves themselves However, it turned out to be much more general than he could have imaginedMax Planck Planck, Max (1858-1947) German physicist who formulated an equation describing the blackbody spectrum in 1900. Wien and Rayleigh had also developed equations, but Wien's only worked at high frequencies, and Rayleigh's only worked at low frequencies. Planck's spectrum was obtained by postulating that energy was directly proportional to frequency (E=hν). Planck believed that this quantization applied only to the absorption and emission of energy by matter, not to electromagnetic waves themselves. However, it turned out to be much more general than he could have imagined