He was a German theoretical physicist who worked in the field of thermodynamics and the distribution of radiation from a black body. He studied under Helmholtz, Clausius, and Kirchhoff and subsequently joined the faculty. He became a professor of theoretical physics. He introduced the quantum theory after he abandoned the classical Newtonian principles in 1900. For this, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1918. His theory assumes that energy is not infinitely subdivisible but it exists as discrete amounts called quanta.