{"product_id":"helmholtz-and-the-conservation-of-energy-isbn-9780262045735","title":"Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn 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.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 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 \u003ci\u003eHelmholtz and the Conservation of Energy\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCaneva 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.Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eConventions\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e1 Helmholtz's Self-Described Principal Concerns\u003cbr\u003e2 The Broader Context\u003cbr\u003e3 More Immediate Contexts: Johannes Müller and Justus Liebig\u003cbr\u003e4 The Problematic Introduction to On the Conservation of Force and the Question of Kantian Influence\u003cbr\u003e5 The Emergence of Helmholtzian Conservation of Force\u003cbr\u003e6 What Helmholtz Believed He Had Accomplished\u003cbr\u003e7 The Reception of On the Conservation of Force: The First Ten Years\u003cbr\u003e8 Helmholtz and the Conservation of Force in Poggendorff's Annalen through 1865 and in the Fortschritte der Physik through 1867\u003cbr\u003e9 Helmholtz's Place in the Acceptance of the Conservation of Energy\u003cbr\u003e10 Helmholtz's Relationship to Robert Mayer\u003cbr\u003e11 Reflections, Assessment, and Conclusions\u003cbr\u003eHistoriographical Excursus: How Others Have Interpreted Helmholtz's Achievement\u003cbr\u003eAppendix: Magnus' Letter of 1858 to Alexander von Humboldt\u003cbr\u003eBibliography of Primary Sources\u003cbr\u003eBibliography of Secondary Sources\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eIndex“Every future study of Helmholtz and the conservation of energy will have to contend with what Caneva has so carefully, so thoroughly, and so magnificently present[ed] as the ‘contexts of creation and reception’ of Helmholtz’s pathbreaking essay on the \u003ci\u003eErhaltung der Kraft.\u003c\/i\u003e A landmark study based on a close reading of primary sources and filled with insights and acumen, Caneva’s book is a masterpiece.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e—\u003cb\u003eAnnals of Science\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Caneva’s impressively detailed piece of scholarship is undoubtedly a landmark contribution.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMetascience\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“The focal point of this study is Helmholtz’s youthful and enigmatic pamphlet on the conservation of force from 1847. But its scope is immense, covering the complex historical developments that converged in this scientific classic and those that branched out of it.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eDaan Wegener, Utrecht University\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A meticulous and excellent account. Caneva masterfully analyzes, through the exhaustive use of sources, the rocky emergence and, ultimately, communal acceptance of one of science’s fundamental laws.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eDavid Cahan, Charles Bessey Professor Emeritus of History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; author of \u003ci\u003eHelmholtz: A Life in Science\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Caneva’s study of Helmholtz and the conservation of energy is big, thorough, judicious, and definitive—a masterful analysis of the birth, reception, and eventual enthronement of one of the guiding concepts of modern physics.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eSteven Turner, Professor Emeritus in History, University of New Brunswick\u003c\/b\u003eKenneth L. Caneva is Emeritus Professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Form and Function of Scientific Discoveries\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eRobert Mayer and the Conservation of Energy\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303072583909,"sku":"NP9780262045735","price":125.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262045735.jpg?v=1767728923","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/helmholtz-and-the-conservation-of-energy-isbn-9780262045735","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}