Father ofquantum mechanics is a moniker applied to several individuals. Strictly speaking, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger have equal claim and recognition. Max Planck unwittingly originated the vast field of quantum theory with his famous Planck Equation and is regarded as the 'true but reluctant father' of the modern concept of 'quantum of energy' that underlies all quantum phenomena. However, according to acclaimed science historianThomas Kuhn, head of applied physics Douglas A. Stone, cognitive scientistDouglas Hofstadter and many others, including Planck himself, it was Albert Einstein who quantized the radiation field by arguing that light itself was quantized - as opposed to Planck's much more ambiguous argument that quantization only occurred at the sites of emission and absorption. Kuhn, Stone and Hofstadter all argue that it was Einstein, not Planck, who quantized the radiation field. For this reason, and his many other seminal contributions to quantum theory, Einstein is regarded by many science historians as the father of quantum theory.
Background
Planck introduced the concept of a hypothetical energy quantum to explain black-body radiation spectra in 1900. Albert Einstein cemented the utility of quantum theory through explanation of the photoelectric effect in a 1905 paper. The fundamental concept that the energy E of any system that absorbs or emits electromagnetic radiation of frequencyν is an integer multiple of an energy quantum inspired Erwin Schrödinger to quantize the classical wave equation. Schrödinger arrived at what is now known as the Schrödinger equationpublished in 1926. This formulation is known as wave mechanics, an alternative formulation of quantum theory by Werner Heisenberg was published in a 1925 paper. Heisenberg's work is also referred to as the matrix mechanics formulation of quantum physics for which he was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics. As far as attribution for Quantum Mechanics, Heisenberg's Nobel Prize citation awards Heisenberg the credit "for the creation of quantum mechanics. Additional fine-tuning by Max Born provided the practical way of interpreting probabilities in quantum theory.
