Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand Von Helmholtz
1821-1894
German Physicist, Philosopher and Physiologist
Hermann von Helmholtz's scientific career marked him as one of the foremost scientific minds of the nineteenth century. His landmark theories and ideas encompassed electrodynamics, fluid and thermo dynamics, mathematics, optics, and physiology.
Though interested in many aspects of knowledge in his youth, Helmholtz was not distinguished by any early scientific gifts. He leaned toward physics in his university years but began his scientific work in the field of medicine with medical school in Berlin in 1838. Lectures included attendance at the University of Berlin, where he found mentors in J. P. Müller in physiology and H. G. Magnus in physics. Helmholtz's medical thesis (1842) on the relation of animal nerve fibers and cells and heat led to his interest in the theory of the conservation of energy. Thus, early on this personal research netted the writing of a fundamental paper in classical physics titled "On the Conservation of Force" (1847), which would find application in several areas of experimental science. Yet his primary career was as a professor of physiology, which included several important academic positions: Königsberg (1849), Bonn (1855), and Heidelberg (1858).
Starting in 1850 Helmholtz would invent instruments for studying the human eye, leading to contributions to the understanding of the structure and mechanism of the eye. This wasexpanded between 1857 and 1859 into investigations of physiological acoustics, the study of tone (combination and vowel), and important work on the mechanism of the bones of the middle ear, emphasizing the physical nature of the eardrum. He had also returned to nerve studies earlier (1850), successfully measuring the speed of the propagation of nerve impulses.
Hermann von Helmholtz. (The Library of Congress. Reproduced by permission.)In regard to his physical study Helmholtz's 1847 paper proved that the work or energy done by a force was conserved, and that the total energy of particles interacting through some central force was dependent upon only the mass of the particles and their spatial separation. In this he had philosophically and physically defined the theory by just two concepts: matter and force (Helmholtz called it an "ultimate" force), and his theory was more comprehensive than that of other scientists studying the conservation of energy, such as Sadi Carnot (1796-1832), Julius Mayer (1814-1878), and James Joule (1818-1888). Helmholtz also did studies in energetics, or the transformation of energy of one type into another, which were important to the prevailing concept of a mechanical or dynamic theory of heat. Among the applications in which he proved the conservation of energy were electrostatics, electrodynamics, and thermodynamics.
Helmholtz provided seminal contributive papers to the fields of electricity and magnetism (1858) and the physics of fluid flow (also 1858). He also worked out two basic, or primitive, equations based on the mathematics of fluid flow, showing the stability of vortex motion and the constancy of velocities of that motion. Later, he produced an important paper ("On Atmospheric Motion," 1888) dealing with the limited radiation in the polar regions, which meant sinking air over that area in relation to the general circulation of the atmosphere.
Helmholtz's renown as a theoretical physicist grew as his life progressed. He held the physics professorship of his late professor Magnus at Berlin (1871). By 1888 he had become the foremost scientific advisor in Germany, the proof of which was his appointment as the director of the new Physico-Technical Institute at Berlin, which was the first national scientific laboratory in Europe.
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