Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German
physicist and
physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly
hydrodynamic stability
In fluid dynamics, hydrodynamic stability is the field which analyses the stability and the onset of instability of fluid flows. The study of hydrodynamic stability aims to find out if a given flow is stable or unstable, and if so, how these inst ...
. The
Helmholtz Association
The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (german: Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren) is the largest scientific organisation in Germany. It is a union of 18 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centers. ...
, the largest German association of
research institutions, is named in his honor.
In the fields of
physiology and
psychology, Helmholtz is known for his mathematics concerning the
eye,
theories of vision, ideas on the
visual perception of space,
color vision research, the sensation of tone, perceptions of sound, and
empiricism in the physiology of perception. In
physics, he is known for his theories on the conservation of
energy, work in
electrodynamics
In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge. It is the second-strongest of the four fundamental interactions, after the strong force, and it is the dominant force in the interactions o ...
,
chemical thermodynamics
Chemical thermodynamics is the study of the interrelation of heat and work with chemical reactions or with physical changes of state within the confines of the laws of thermodynamics. Chemical thermodynamics involves not only laboratory measurem ...
, and on a
mechanical foundation of
thermodynamics. As a
philosopher, he is known for his
philosophy of science, ideas on the relation between the laws of perception and the
laws of nature, the science of
aesthetics, and ideas on the civilizing power of science.
Biography
Early years
Helmholtz was born in
Potsdam the son of the local
gymnasium headmaster, Ferdinand Helmholtz, who had studied
classical philology and
philosophy, and who was a close friend of the publisher and philosopher
Immanuel Hermann Fichte. Helmholtz's work was influenced by the philosophy of
Johann Gottlieb Fichte and
Immanuel Kant. He tried to trace their theories in empirical matters like
physiology.
As a young man, Helmholtz was interested in natural science, but his father wanted him to study medicine. Helmholtz earned a
medical doctorate at in 1842 and served a one-year internship at the
Charité hospital (because there was financial support for medical students).
Trained primarily in physiology, Helmholtz wrote on many other topics, ranging from theoretical physics, to the
age of the Earth, to the origin of the
Solar System.
University posts
Helmholtz's first academic position was as a teacher of Anatomy at the Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1848. He then moved to take a post of associate professor of physiology at the Prussian
University of Königsberg
The University of Königsberg (german: Albertus-Universität Königsberg) was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke Albert of Pruss ...
, where he was appointed in 1849. In 1855 he accepted a full professorship of anatomy and physiology at the
University of Bonn. He was not particularly happy in Bonn, however, and three years later he transferred to the
University of Heidelberg, in
Baden, where he served as professor of physiology. In 1871 he accepted his final university position, as professor of physics at the
Humboldt University
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiati ...
in Berlin.
Research
Mechanics
His first important scientific achievement, an 1847 treatise on the
conservation of energy, was written in the context of his medical studies and philosophical background. His work on energy conservation came about while studying
muscle metabolism. He tried to demonstrate that no energy is lost in muscle movement, motivated by the implication that there were no ''vital forces'' necessary to move a muscle. This was a rejection of the speculative tradition of ''
Naturphilosophie'' which was at that time a dominant philosophical paradigm in German physiology.
Drawing on the earlier work of
Sadi Carnot,
Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron and
James Prescott Joule
James Prescott Joule (; 24 December 1818 11 October 1889) was an English physicist, mathematician and brewer, born in Salford, Lancashire. Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work (see energy). ...
, he postulated a relationship between
mechanics,
heat,
light,
electricity and
magnetism by treating them all as manifestations of a single ''force'', or
energy in today's terminology. He published his theories in his book ''Über die Erhaltung der Kraft'' (''On the Conservation of Force'', 1847).
In the 1850s and 60s, building on the publications of
William Thomson, Helmholtz and
William Rankine
William John Macquorn Rankine (; 5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mechanical engineer who also contributed to civil engineering, physics and mathematics. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson ( ...
popularized the idea of the
heat death of the universe.
In fluid dynamics, Helmholtz made several contributions, including
Helmholtz's theorems for vortex dynamics in inviscid fluids.
File:Helmholtz-1.jpg, 1889 copy of Helmholtz's "Uber die Erhaltung der Kraft," no. 1
File:Helmholtz-2.jpg, Title page of "Uber die Erhaltung der Kraft," no. 1
File:Helmholtz-3.jpg, First page of "Uber die Erhaltung der Kraft," no. 1
Sensory physiology
Helmholtz was a pioneer in the scientific study of human vision and audition. Inspired by
psychophysics, he was interested in the relationships between measurable physical stimuli and their correspondent human perceptions. For example, the amplitude of a sound wave can be varied, causing the sound to appear louder or softer, but a linear step in sound pressure amplitude does not result in a linear step in perceived loudness. The physical sound needs to be increased exponentially in order for equal steps to seem linear, a fact that is used in current electronic devices to control volume. Helmholtz paved the way in experimental studies on the relationship between the physical energy (physics) and its appreciation (psychology), with the goal in mind to develop "psychophysical laws."
The sensory physiology of Helmholtz was the basis of the work of
Wilhelm Wundt, a student of Helmholtz, who is considered one of the founders of experimental
psychology. More explicitly than Helmholtz, Wundt described his research as a form of empirical philosophy and as a study of the mind as something separate. Helmholtz had, in his early repudiation of
Naturphilosophie, stressed the importance of
materialism, and was focusing more on the unity of "mind" and body.
Ophthalmic optics
In 1851, Helmholtz revolutionized the field of
ophthalmology with the invention of the
ophthalmoscope
Ophthalmoscopy, also called funduscopy, is a test that allows a health professional to see inside the fundus of the eye and other structures using an ophthalmoscope (or funduscope). It is done as part of an eye examination and may be done as part ...
; an instrument used to examine the inside of the
human eye. This made him world-famous overnight. Helmholtz's interests at that time were increasingly focused on the physiology of the senses. His main publication, titled ''Handbuch der Physiologischen Optik'' (''Handbook of Physiological Optics'' or ''Treatise on Physiological Optics''; English translation of the 3rd volum
here, provided empirical theories on
depth perception,
color vision, and
motion perception, and became the fundamental reference work in his field during the second half of the nineteenth century. In the third and final volume, published in 1867, Helmholtz described the importance of
unconscious inferences for perception. The ''Handbuch'' was first translated into English under the editorship of
James P. C. Southall on behalf of the
Optical Society of America
Optica (formerly known as The Optical Society (OSA) and before that as the Optical Society of America) is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conference ...
in 1924–5. His theory of
accommodation went unchallenged until the final decade of the 20th century.
Helmholtz continued to work for several decades on several editions of the handbook, frequently updating his work because of his dispute with
Ewald Hering
Karl Ewald Konstantin Hering (5 August 1834 – 26 January 1918) was a German physiologist who did much research into color vision, binocular perception and eye movements. He proposed opponent color theory in 1892.
Born in Alt-Gersdorf, Ki ...
who held opposite views on spatial and color vision. This dispute divided the discipline of physiology during the second half of the 1800s.
Nerve physiology
In 1849, while at Königsberg, Helmholtz measured the speed at which the signal is carried along a nerve fibre. At that time most people believed that nerve signals passed along nerves immeasurably fast.
He used a recently dissected sciatic nerve of a frog and the calf muscle to which it attached. He used a
galvanometer
A galvanometer is an electromechanical measuring instrument for electric current. Early galvanometers were uncalibrated, but improved versions, called ammeters, were calibrated and could measure the flow of current more precisely.
A galvan ...
as a sensitive timing device, attaching a mirror to the needle to reflect a light beam across the room to a scale which gave much greater sensitivity.
Helmholtz reported transmission speeds in the range of 24.6 – 38.4 meters per second.
Acoustics and aesthetics
In 1863, Helmholtz published ''
Sensations of Tone
''On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music'' (German ), commonly referred to as ''Sensations of Tone'', is a foundational work on music acoustics and the perception of sound by Hermann von Helmholtz.
The first ...
'', once again demonstrating his interest in the physics of perception. This book influenced musicologists into the twentieth century. Helmholtz invented the
Helmholtz resonator
Helmholtz resonance or wind throb is the phenomenon of air resonance in a cavity, such as when one blows across the top of an empty bottle. The name comes from a device created in the 1850s by Hermann von Helmholtz, the ''Helmholtz resonator'', wh ...
to identify the various
frequencies or
pitches of the pure
sine wave components of
complex sounds containing multiple tones.
Helmholtz showed that different combinations of resonator could mimic
vowel sounds:
Alexander Graham Bell in particular was interested in this but, not being able to read German, misconstrued Helmholtz' diagrams as meaning that Helmholtz had transmitted multiple frequencies by wire—which would allow multiplexing of telegraph signals—whereas, in reality, electrical power was used only to keep the resonators in motion. Bell failed to reproduce what he thought Helmholtz had done but later said that, had he been able to read German, he would not have gone on to invent the telephone on the
harmonic telegraph principle.
[MacKenzie 2003, p. 41.]
The translation by
Alexander J. Ellis was first published in 1875 (the first English edition was from the 1870 third German edition; Ellis's second English edition from the 1877 fourth German edition was published in 1885; the 1895 and 1912 third and fourth English editions were reprints of the second).
Electromagnetism
Helmholtz studied the phenomena of electrical oscillations from 1869 to 1871, and in a lecture delivered to the Naturhistorisch-medizinischen Vereins zu Heidelberg (Natural History and Medical Association of Heidelberg) on 30 April 1869, titled ''On Electrical Oscillations'' he indicated that the perceptible damped electrical oscillations in a coil joined up with a
Leyden jar were about 1/50th of a second in duration.
In 1871, Helmholtz moved from Heidelberg to Berlin to become a professor in physics. He became interested in
electromagnetism, and the
Helmholtz equation is named for him. Although he did not make major contributions to this field, his student
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz became famous as the first to demonstrate
electromagnetic radiation.
Oliver Heaviside criticised Helmholtz's electromagnetic theory because it allowed the existence of
longitudinal wave
Longitudinal waves are waves in which the vibration of the medium is parallel ("along") to the direction the wave travels and displacement of the medium is in the same (or opposite) direction of the wave propagation. Mechanical longitudinal waves ...
s. Based on work on
Maxwell's equations, Heaviside pronounced that longitudinal waves could not exist in a vacuum or a homogeneous medium. Heaviside did not note, however, that longitudinal electromagnetic waves can exist at a boundary or in an enclosed space.
Philosophy
Helmholtz wavered between
empiricism and
transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Wald ...
in his philosophy of science.
Quotations
Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility may rest assured that he seeks in vain.
— ''Academic Discourse'' (Heidelberg 1862)
Students and associates
Other students and research associates of Helmholtz at Berlin included
Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...
,
Heinrich Kayser
Heinrich Gustav Johannes Kayser ForMemRS (; 16 March 1853 – 14 October 1940) was a German physicist and spectroscopist.
Biography
Kayser was born at Bingen am Rhein. Kayser's early work was concerned with the characteristics of acoustic wav ...
,
Eugen Goldstein,
Wilhelm Wien,
Arthur König,
Henry Augustus Rowland
Henry Augustus Rowland (November 27, 1848 – April 16, 1901) was an American physicist and Johns Hopkins educator. Between 1899 and 1901 he served as the first president of the American Physical Society. He is remembered primarily for the h ...
,
Albert A. Michelson
Albert Abraham Michelson FFRS HFRSE (surname pronunciation anglicized as "Michael-son", December 19, 1852 – May 9, 1931) was a German-born American physicist of Polish/Jewish origin, known for his work on measuring the speed of light and esp ...
,
Wilhelm Wundt,
Fernando Sanford and
Michael I. Pupin.
Leo Koenigsberger, who was his colleague 1869–1871 in Heidelberg, wrote the definitive biography of him in 1902.
Honours and legacy
* In 1873, Helmholtz was elected as a member of the
American Philosophical Society.
*In 1881, Helmholtz was elected
Honorary Fellow of the
Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
* On 10 November 1881, he was awarded the
Légion d'honneur: au grade de Commandeur, or Level 3 – a senior grade. (No. 2173).
* In 1883, Professor Helmholtz was honoured by the Emperor, being raised to the nobility, or ''Adel''. The ''Adelung'' meant that he and his family were now styled: von Helmholtz. The distinction was not a peerage or title, but it was hereditary and conferred a certain social cachet.
* Helmholtz was conferred with Honorary Membership of the
Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland
The Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland (IESIS) is a multi-disciplinary professional body and learned society, founded in Scotland, for professional engineers in all disciplines and for those associated with or taking an interes ...
in 1884.
* The largest German association of
research institutions, the
Helmholtz Association
The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (german: Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren) is the largest scientific organisation in Germany. It is a union of 18 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centers. ...
, is named after him.
* The asteroid
11573 Helmholtz and the lunar crater ''
Helmholtz'' as well as the crater ''
Helmholtz'' on Mars were named in his honour.
* In
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg () is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Prussia, it is best known for Charlottenburg Palace, the ...
,
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
, the street ''Helmholtzstraße'' is named after von Helmholtz.
Works
*
*
*
*
*
*
Translated works
*
On the Conservation of Force' (1847
HathiTrust*
*
*
*
' (1895) Introduction to a Series of Lectures Delivered at
Carlsruhe in the Winter of 1862–1863, English translation
*
On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music' (downloadable from California Digital Library) Third Edition of English Translation, based on Fourth German Edition of 1877, By Hermann von Helmholtz, Alexander John Ellis, Published by Longmans, Green, 1895, 576 pages
*
On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music' (downloadable from Google Books) Fourth Edition, By Hermann von Helmholtz, Alexander John Ellis, Published by Longmans, Green, 1912, 575 pages
*
Treatise on Physiological Optics' (1910) three volumes. English translation by Optical Society of America (1924–25).
*
Popular lectures on scientific subjects' (1885)
*
Popular lectures on scientific subjects' second series (1908)
See also
*
Helmholtz coil
A Helmholtz coil is a device for producing a region of nearly uniform magnetic field, named after the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz. It consists of two electromagnets on the same axis, carrying an equal electric current in the same direc ...
*
List of people from Berlin
*
List of things named after Hermann von Helmholtz
*
Neo-Kantianism
In late modern continental philosophy, neo-Kantianism (german: Neukantianismus) was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The Neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the "thin ...
*
Theory of Colours
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
* Cahan, David ''Helmholtz: A Life in Science.'' University of Chicago Press, 2018. .
* Cohen, Robert, and
Wartofsky, Marx, eds. and trans. Reidel. ''Helmholtz: Epistemological Writings'', 1977.
* Ewald, William B., ed. ''From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of Mathematics'', 2 vols. Oxford Uni. Press, 1996.
** 1876. "The origin and meaning of geometrical axioms," 663–88.
** 1878. "The facts in perception," 698–726.
** 1887. "Numbering and measuring from an epistemological viewpoint," 727–52.
* Groundwater, Jennifer. ''Alexander Graham Bell: The Spirit of Invention''. Calgary: Altitude Publishing, 2005. .
* Jackson, Myles W. ''Harmonious Triads: Physicists, Musicians, and Instrument Makers in Nineteenth-Century Germany'' (MIT Press, 2006).
* Kahl, Russell, ed. Wesleyan. ''Selected Writings of Hermann von Helmholtz'', Uni. Press., 1971.
* Koenigsberger, Leo. ''Hermann von Helmholtz'', translated by Frances A. Welby (Dover, 1965)
* MacKenzie, Catherine
''Alexander Graham Bell''.Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2003. . Retrieved 29 July 2009.
* Shulman, Seth. ''
The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Bell's Secret''. New York: Norton & Company, 2008. .
Further reading
* David Cahan: ''Helmholtz: A Life in Science'' (University of Chicago, 2018).
* David Cahan (Ed.): ''Hermann von Helmholtz and the Foundations of Nineteenth-Century Science.'' Univ. California, Berkeley 1994, .
* Gregor Schiemann: ''Hermann von Helmholtz's Mechanism: The Loss of Certainty. A Study on the Transition from Classical to Modern Philosophy of Nature''. Dordrecht: Springer 2009, .
*
Steven Shapin
Steven Shapin (born 1943) is an American historian and sociologist of science. He is the Franklin L. Ford Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. He is considered one of the earliest scholars on the sociology of scienti ...
, "A Theorist of (Not Quite) Everything" (review of
David Cahan, ''Helmholtz: A Life in Science'', University of Chicago Press, 2018, , 937 pp.), ''
The New York Review of Books'', vol. 66, no. 15 (10 October 2019), pp. 29–31.
* Franz Werner: ''Hermann Helmholtz´ Heidelberger Jahre (1858–1871)''. (= Sonderveröffentlichungen des Stadtarchivs Heidelberg 8). Mit 52 Abbildungen. Berlin / Heidelberg (Springer) 1997.
* Kenneth L. Caneva:
Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy: Contexts of Creation and Reception'. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2021, ISBN 978-0-262-04573-5
External links
*
Hermann von Helmholtz (Obituary). Royal Society (Great Britain). (1894). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. London: Printed by Taylor and Francis.
*
Hermann von Helmholtz by Leo Koenigsberger (Oxford: Clarendon press, 1906) from
Internet Archive
*
Hermann von Helmholtz article by Lydia Patton, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
*
* J. G. McKendrick
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz' (London : Unwin, 1899)
Biography, bibliography and access to digital sourcesin the
Virtual Laboratory of the
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
* (''Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen'')
* Helmholtz's (1867
''Handbuch der physiologischen Optik''– digital facsimile from the
Linda Hall Library
The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, sitting "majestically on a urban arboretum." It is the "largest independently funded public library of scien ...
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Helmholtz, Hermann Von
1821 births
1894 deaths
Acousticians
Color scientists
Faraday Lecturers
Fluid dynamicists
Foreign Members of the Royal Society
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
German biophysicists
19th-century German physicists
German untitled nobility
German ophthalmologists
Humboldt University of Berlin faculty
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
People from Potsdam
People from the Province of Brandenburg
Recipients of the Copley Medal
Recipients of the Matteucci Medal
Thermodynamicists
University of Bonn faculty
Heidelberg University faculty
University of Königsberg faculty
Vision scientists
Auditory scientists
Physicians of the Charité
Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala