Author: Caneva, Kenneth L.
Title: Helmholtz and the conservation of energy : contexts of creation and reception.
Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, 2021. Hardcover. Dustjacket. xix, 735 pp. Mailorder only - Alleen verzending mogelijk. Book condition : as new. - An examination of the sources Helmholtz drew upon for his formulation of the conservation of energy and the impact of his work on nineteenth-century physics. In 1847, Herman Helmholtz, arguably the most important German physicist of the nineteenth century, published his formulation of what became known as the conservation of energy--unarguably the most important single development in physics of that century, transforming what had been a conglomeration of separate topics into a coherent field unified by the concept of energy. In Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy, Kenneth Caneva offers a detailed account of Helmholtz's work on the subject, the sources that he drew upon, the varying responses to his work from scientists of the era, and the impact on physics as a discipline. Caneva describes the set of abiding concerns that prompted Helmholtz's work, including his rejection of the idea of a work-performing vital force, and investigates Helmholtz's relationship to both an older generation of physicists and an emerging community of reformist physiologists. He analyzes Helmholtz's indebtedness to Johannes Müller and Justus Liebig and discusses Helmholtz's tense and ambivalent relationship to the work of Robert Mayer, who had earlier proposed the uncreatability, indestructibility, and transformability of force. Caneva examines Helmholtz's continued engagement with the subject, his role in the acceptance of the conservation of energy as the central principle of physics, and the eventual incorporation of the principle in textbooks as established science. Contents : Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Conventions -- Introduction -- 1. Helmholtz's Self-Described Principal Concerns -- The Impossibility of a Perpetuum Mobile -- Heat as a Form of Motion-Including a Molecular-Mechanical Ontology and a Reductionist Physiology -- The Source of Animal Heat -- The Illegitimacy of a Vital Force -- Rational Mechanics and the Conservation of Vis Viva -- Causality, Epistemology, and the Nature of Force -- 2. The Broader Context -- Chemical and Physical Equivalents -- The Nature of Heat -- The Source of Animal Heat-and Motion -- The Role and Legitimacy of a Vital Force -- The Steam Engine as Metaphor -- Rational Mechanics and the Conservation of Vis Viva -- From Leibniz to Daniel Bernoulli -- From d'Alembert to Duhamel -- The Relationship of Mechanics to Physics -- The Impossibility (or Not) of Perpetual Motion and of the Indefinite Creation of Force -- Causality, Epistemology, and the Nature of Force -- The Changing Character of Physiology -- 3. More Immediate Contexts: Johannes Mu¨ller and Justus Liebig -- 4. The Problematic Introduction to On the Conservation of Force and the Question of Kantian Influence -- 5. The Emergence of Helmholtzian Conservation of Force -- 6. What Helmholtz Believed He Had Accomplished -- 7. The Reception of On the Conservation of Force: The First Ten Years -- Immediate and Local Responses -- The Situation in Ko¨nigsberg -- German Physiologists' Responses -- Responses Farther Afield: Danish and Dutch Scientists -- Focused Responses for Broader German and Danish Audiences -- Helmholtz among the British -- Helmholtz and William Thomson -- Helmholtz and Macquorn Rankine -- Other British Connections and Mutual Influences -- 8. Helmholtz and the Conservation of Force in Poggendorff's Annalen through 1865 and in the Fortschritte der Physik through 1867. 9. Helmholtz's Place in the Acceptance of the Conservation of Energy -- Helmholtz's Terminology over Time -- Helmholtz's Presentation of the Conservation of Energy over Time -- Helmholtz's Low Public Profile in the Late 1850s -- Helmholtz Acquires a Place in the Popularization of the Conservation of Energy -- Citation, Engagement, and Implicit Influence, 1858-1860 -- The Conservation of Energy Becomes a Matter of Contention in Britain, 1862-1864-without Helmholtz -- The Status of the Conservation of Energy and Its Ascription to Helmholtz: Focused Critiques -- Some of Physicists' Principal Concerns, ca. 1870-1900 -- Arguments in Terms of the Impossibility of Constructing a Perpetuum Mobile -- The Relationship between the Conservation of Energy and the Conservation of Vis Viva -- The Conservation of Energy between Physics and Mechanics -- Ontological Considerations -- Methodological Considerations -- Causality and the Conservation of Energy -- Forging a Concept of Force-as-Energy -- Forces as Quantitatively Indestructible and Qualitatively Changeable -- Forces as Expendable -- Forces as Substantial Entities -- Helmholtz's Place in the Adoption of the Conservation of Energy in Textbooks and Monographs -- Works in English -- Works in German -- Works in French -- 10. Helmholtz's Relationship to Robert Mayer -- Encounters and Responses -- Methodological Issues: Mayer and Metaphysics -- Methodological Issues: Helmholtz and Mayer as Proxies -- 11. Reflections, Assessment, and Conclusions -- Historiographical Excursus: How Others Have Interpreted Helmholtz's Achievement -- Appendix: Magnus's Letter of 1858 to Alexander von Humboldt -- Notes -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9 -- Chapter 10 -- Chapter 11 -- Historiographical Excursus. ISBN 9780262045735.

Keywords: HISTORY OF SCIENCE, Helmholtz, Hermann von (1821-1894)