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

secundary literature, I started doubting of the correctness of some of Kuhn's main
historical and historiographical claims.
Six not minor points are, in my view, at issue: 1) that in 1845-46
"Helmholtz fails to notice that body heat may be expended in mechanical
work" 438; 2) that the concept of work of the old mechanical engineering tradition
was "all that which is required" and "the most decisive contribution to energy
conservation made by the nineteenth-century concern with engines." 439; 3) that
"Helmholtz was not, however, aware of the French theoretical engineering
tradition. Like Mayer he derives the factor of1/2 in the definition of energy of
motion and is unaware of any precedent for it." 440; 4) that Helmholtz "fails
completely to identify as work or Arbeitskraft and instead calls it the "sum
of the tensions.." 441; 5) that "the dominance of contact theory in Germany" might
"account for the rather surprising way in which both Mayer and Helmholtz
neglect the battery in their accounts of energy transformations" 442; 6) that
"Helmholtz was able by 1881 to recognise important Kantian residues " in the
Erhaltung "that had escaped his earlier censorship" 443 and that this is evidence of
influences of Naturphilosophie .
I will show below that: 1)Helmholtz before 1847 was aware of the heatwork
interconvertibility, despite lacking a numerical equivalent; 2) the concept of
work was not a precious contribution to energy conservation till it acquired the
requirements of being a total differentiaL; 3) Helmholtz was well aware of the
French tradition; he utilised but did not rederive the new expression of the vis
viva; 4) Helmholtz consciously dropped also the new interpretation of the term
"Arbeit" in favour of "Spannkraft". This was one of his most relevant
contributions. 5) Helmholtz not only showed that contact theory was not against
conservation, but also dedicated the longest section of the Erhaltung to an
analysis of the batteries; 6) Helmholtz did not censor but reinstated in 1847 the
philosophical introduction to the Erhaltung before publication were Kantian
transcendentalism and not Naturphilosophie idealism played a main role. In 1881,
438 Kuhn Sim Disc p.95 n. 68.
439 Kuhn Sim Disc p.84 and 90.
440 Kuhn Sim Disc p.88.
441 Kuhn Sim Disc p.88.
442 Kuhn Sim Disc p.73
443 Kuhn Sim Disc pp.100-1.