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

FordPrefect · Jul 14, 2008

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 · Jul 14, 2008

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 · Jul 14, 2008

Thank you very much Cthugha!

peter0302 · Jul 14, 2008

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

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

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