Why Was "h" Chosen for Planck's Constant?

[FordPrefect]

Planck's Constant..."h"

I am wondering if anyone knows why "h" was chosen for Planck's Constant? Or did they just randomly select a letter which didn't represent a constant at the time?
Thanks.
-Ford

 

[Cthugha]

When Planck first published his results, he thought of h as an auxiliary quantity. In German an auxiliary quantity is called Hilfsgröße, which is - at least according to some historical reports about Planck's life - the reason, why he used h, the first letter of Hilfsgröße, to represent this constant.

 

[FordPrefect]

Thank you very much Cthugha!

 

[peter0302]

The "h" was for "helpless," because he realized that's how students would feel when they were first learning about this stuff.