BERLIN, Oct. 4 (AP)--Dr. Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winner and originator of the Quantum Theory which provided one of the basic propositions underlying the splitting of the atom, died last night, the Goettingen University clinic announced today. His age was 89. Max Planck was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and one of the outstanding intellects of all time. As father of the Quantum Theory he ranks with the immortals of science, such as Archimedes, Galileo, Newton and Einstein. Modern physical science rests on two pillars--the theory of relativity and the quantum theory. The one gave man a new and more profound understanding of space and time, matter and motion; the other has provided man with a master key to the universe within the atom, to the nature of light and radiant energy in general. Relativity gave man a key to the universe at large; the quantum theory gave him a key to the atom. Like the theory of relativity, the quantum theory is universally regarded as one of the outstanding scientific achievements of the twentieth century and one of the greatest intellectual contributions of all time. As expanded later by Einstein, Niels Bohr, Prince de Broglie, Schroedinger and Dirac, it has become one of the two foundations of modern physics, and particularly of the physics of the atomic nucleus. In 1900 Planck made the fundamental discovery that energy was not a continuous entity, but came in discontinuous small bundles he named quanta. These quanta, he discovered, were not all of the same size but varied with the frequency of the radiation of which they were a part. This discovery, fully corroborated later, provided man for the first time with an understanding of the nature of light and of radiation in general, phenomena that could not be explained on the basis of classical Newtonian physics or of relativity. One of his major discoveries, ranking as one of the great discoveries of all time, was that of a universal constant of nature known as Planck's Constant, or "h." Each quantum of radiant energy, he found, was equal to this universal constant "h," times its frequency. This constant is a very small factor indeed, being equal to 6.55 billion-billion-billionths erg- seconds. Thus when applied to big scale phenomena it makes no practical or observable difference; but it makes a profound difference when applied to things on the scale of atoms. Very few scientists were honored during their lifetime as was Max Planck. He won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1919. Many other high honors came to him. When the Physical Society of Berlin conferred on him a special medal, he handed a duplicate of it to his friend, Einstein. The Royal Society of Great Britain gave him the Copley Medal and Cambridge University conferred on him its honorary doctorate. He lectured at Columbia University in 1909, and was made rector of the University of Berlin in 1913. During the Nazi regime he showed his independence of spirit when he presided at the memorial services for Fritz Haber, one of Germany's great chemists, who died an exile in Switzerland. Throughout his life, Planck remained a modest, simple man. He always traveled third class and thought nothing of carrying home the family supper from the delicatessen store. He was a talented pianist, and delighted in playing duets with musical friends. In the introduction to Dr. Planck's book, "Where Is Science Going?" published in 1932, Albert Einstein paid him the following tribute: "One of those few worshipers in the Temple of Science who would still remain should an angel of God descend and drive out of the temple all those lesser scientists, who under different circumstances might become politicians or captains of industry." Dr. Planck was born on April 23, 1858, in Kiel, the son of Johann Julius Wilhelm and Emma von Planck. His father was a professor of law. After the elder Planck was called to Munich the son attended the university there, and he obtained his Ph. D. from the University of Berlin by the time he was 21. From 1880 to 1885 he was private-dozent in physics at Munich and then was made a professor at Kiel, four years later succeeding Gustav Kirchoff in Berlin. Subsequently he was appointed to the chair of the famed Herman Helmholtz in the Academy of Sciences. The Quantum Theory was described by Dr. Planck himself as follows: "Radiant heat is not a continuous flow and indefinitely divisible. ... It must be defined as a discontinuous mass, made up of units all of which are similar to one another." He said the new unit was a quantum of action; and called these the "pennies of the atomic world." Dr. Planck's first wife, Marie Merck, died twenty years after their marriage. He then married Margarethe von Hoesslin. He was the father of three sons and twin daughters. Even in old age he clung to his hobby for mountain climbing, and retained vigorous good health. On Dr. Planck's seventieth birthday President Paul von Hindenburg presented to him the silver eagle shield of the Reich. In 1930 he was appointed president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Scientific Research. This organization had been financed by wealthy Germans in 1911, when they feared that the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations might make this country the leader in science. The Rockefeller Foundation, however, with no such nationalistic views, would donate to Dr. Planck's society as much as $1,500,000 in a year. The German press had said this was because the Rockefellers were of German descent. Among Dr. Planck's books were "Principles of Conservation of Energy," 1887; "Lectures on Thermo-Dynamics, 1897; "Lectures on the Theory of Heat Radiation," 1906; "Introduction to the Theory of Physics," 1930, and "Where Is Science Going?", 1932.