Helmholtz and the conservation of energy : contexts of creation and reception

Author:

Caneva, Kenneth L.

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Imprint:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2021] and ©2021

Subject:

Helmholtz, Hermann von, - 1821-1894
Force and energy - History
Physicists - Germany - Biography

ISBN:

9780262045735 and 0262045737

Series:

Transformations

Description:

xix, 735 pages ; 24 cm

Bibliographic Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 641-718) and index

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 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 -- 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 -- More Immediate Contexts: Johannes Muller and Justus Liebig -- The Problematic Introduction to On the Conservation of Force and the Question of Kantian Influence -- The Emergence of Helmholtzian Conservation of Force -- What Helmholtz Believed He Had Accomplished -- The Reception of On the Conservation of Force. The First Ten Years -- Immediate and Local Responses -- The Situation in Konigsberg -- 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 -- Helmholtz and the Conservation of Force in Poggendorff's Annalen through 1865 and in the Fortschritte der Physik through 1867 -- 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 -- Helmholtz's Relationship to Robert Mayer -- Encounters and Responses -- Methodological Issues: Mayer and Metaphysics -- Methodological Issues: Helmholtz and Mayer as Proxies -- Reflections, Assessment, and Conclusions -- Historiographical Excursus: How Others Have Interpreted Helmholtz's Achievement

Summary:

"Exhaustive history of Helmholtz's work on the conservation of energy and its broad acceptance"-- Provided by publisher

Collection:

BGC Monograph Stacks

Call Number:

QC73.8.C6 C356 2021

Checked Out

c.1