Conservation and Innovation : Helmholtz's Struggle with Energy ...

himself. Helmholtz is seen rather as a source of reliable opinions: his (wrong)
1847 judgement that Joule's works of 1843-5 were not completely reliable is
recalled; he is credited with being the first who generalized the principle to a
number of applications; it is recognised that in 1854 he was the first to give due
credit to Mayer and the first to indicate Mayer, Colding and Joule as pioneers . In
this debate no precise evaluation of Helmholtz's work is made, nor is he involved
in priority controversies with the British, as happened to Mayer and Clausius.
This is perhaps due to his good relations with both contenders.
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As already mentioned, Helmholtz met Tyndall in Berlin in 1853 and,
thanks to the latter's translation of the Erhaltung , already in 1853, during his first
trip to Britain, he realized he was better known there than at home. Helmholtz's
fame grew after Tyndall's translation of Helmholtz's popular talk of 1854 "On the
Interaction of Natural Forces". An indication is the success, at the time of the
controversy, of the two popular talks on the subject of energy conservation that
Helmholtz gave in London, at the Royal Institution, in 1861 and 1864. The talks
had been organised by Faraday and Tyndall respectively.
Helmholtz and Tyndall kept interacting:in 1870 Helmholtz edited the
German translation of Tyndall's Faraday as a Discoverer (to which he added an
introduction 366), in 1871 Heat as a Mode of Motion , in 1874 the Lectures on
Sound , in 1874 the Fragments of Science (with the preface:"On the Attempt to
Popularize Science" 367).
But Helmholtz since his second trip 368 to Britain, in 1855, had become
a good friend also of W.Thomson, whom he met often. For instance in 1864,
366 Helmholtz, Hermann. Vorrede zur deutschen Übersetzung von J.Tyndall Faraday
as a discoverer. Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1870; pp.V-XI.
367 Helmholtz, Hermann. Vorrede und Kritische Beilage zur deutschen Uebersetzung
von J.Tyndall Fragments of Science. Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1874; pp.V-XXV and 581-97.
Repr. in V u R 1884. Tr in: Nature 10 (1874): 299-302.
368 Helmholtz was a good traveller; among his trips: in 1840 and 1842 in Germany; in
1851 in Germany and Italy; in 1853, 1855, 1861, 1864, 1871, 1884 to Britain; in 1866 and
1881 to Paris; in 1878, 1881 and 1883 to Italy; in 1880 to Spain; in 1881 to Austria, in 1893
the dramatic one to Chicago; plus a number of holidays in Pontresina, Switzerland, a meeting
point for other scientists, such as the Italian Blaserna.