Robert Mayer and the Conservation of Energy / / Kenneth L. Caneva.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton Legacy Lib. eBook Package 1980-1999
• VerfasserIn: Caneva, Kenneth L.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2015]; ©1993
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Language: English
• Series: Princeton Legacy Library ; 1747
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (464 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --; AUTHOR'S NOTE --; INTRODUCTION --; PART I. The Man and His Work --; Chapter one. Mayer the Person --; CHAPTER TWO. Mayer'sWork --; PART I I. Establishing the Relevant Context --; CHAPTER THREE. Physiology and Medicine --; CHAPTER FOUR. Physics and Chemistry --; CHAPTER FIVE. Science Circumscribed --; PART III. Mayer's Work in Context --; CHAPTER SIX . A Contextual Reconstruction of the Development of Mayer's Ideas --; CHAPTER SEVEN. Mayer and Naturphilosophie --; CHAPTER EIGHT. Assessment and Conclusions --; APPENDIXES --; APPENDIX ONE. Timeline of Robert Mayer'S Life and Work --; Appendix Two. Courses Mayer Took at the University of Tübingen, 1832-37 --; APPENDIX THREE. The German Text of the Longer Passages Quoted from M anuscript --; NOTES --; BIBLIOGRAPHY --; INDEX
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781400872817; 9783110413441; 9783110413595; 9783110442496
• DOI: 10.1515/9781400872817
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Kenneth L. Caneva.

The principle of the conservation of energy was among the most important developments of nineteenth-century physics, and Robert Mayer, a physician from a small city in Germany, was one of its codiscoverers. As ship's doctor on a voyage to the Dutch East Indies in 1840, Mayer noticed that the venous blood he let from a European seaman was lighter than he expected. This observation set off a train of reflections that led him first to conclude that there must be a quantitative relationship between heat and "motion" and then, over several years, to believe in the indestructibility and uncreatability of "force." Rejecting the commonly invoked influence of Naturphilosophie, Kenneth Caneva provides a rich historical context for the problems and issues that concerned Mayer and for the ways in which he gradually came to understand what became known as the conservation of energy.Demonstrating that the development of Mayer's thinking was fostered by a constant search for analogies, Caneva also analyzes the transformation of the life sciences in mid-century Germany and offers a major reevaluation of the status of the "vital force" during that period. The intellectual environment treated here embraces medicine, physiology, physics, chemistry, religion, and spiritualism.Kenneth L. Caneva is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.Originally published in 1993.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.