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

chapters, 2)"The Principle of the Conservation of Living Force " and 3)"The
Principle of Conservation of Force", are dedicated to formulating the principle;
the following four chapters are dedicated to the applications of the principle in
the fields of 4) Mechanics, 5) Thermology, 6) Electrostatics and Galvanism, 7)
Magnetism and Electromagnetism, respectively.
1 The "Einleitung": intelligibility of nature and conceptual explanation
In February 1847 Helmholtz sent a sketch of the Erhaltung 's Introduction
to DuBois: it was immediately praised as "an historical document of great
scientific import for all time" 69. This apparently over-enthusiastic judgement
proved to be correct: almost fifty years later Helmholtz was to apply the same
concepts in the Introduction to his series of Lectures in Theoretical Physics ,
ninety years later Einstein and Infeld quoted it 70 as the paradigm of the
mechanical conception of nature, and today it still is the object of methodological
debates 71.
The history of the Introduction is complicated: when the Erhaltung was
presented the 23rd of July at the Physikalische Gesellschaft and when sent to
Magnus in the hope of publication in the Poggendorff's Annalen, the Introduction
had been dropped. After Poggendorff's refusal, at DuBois' request, it was restored
altered in "certain parts" 72 when the essay was sent to Reimer to be published.
In my view these modifications can be identified with the addition of what
is now the first paragraph of the Introduction: they represent an opening
paragraph in which the plan of the Erhaltung is sharply summarised, and are of
extraordinary relevance for an understanding of Helmholtz's approach.
69 Koenigsberger : H v H P.37.
70 Einstein, Albert and Infeld, Leopold. The Evolution of Physics. New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1938; chapt.1, sect 9: The philosophical background.
71 Turner, Steven. "Hermann von Helmholtz." In DSB 6, 1973. Pp.241-53; Heimann,
Peter. "Helmholtz and Kant: The Metaphysical Foundations of 'Über die Erhaltung der Kraft'
." In SHPS 5 (1974) : 205-38; Galaty, David. "The Philosophical Basis of Mid-19th Century
German Reductionism". In Journal for the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 29
(1974): 295-316; Cohen,Robert and Elkana, Yehuda. "Introduction". In H.v.Helmholtz .
Epistemological Writings . Boston: Reidel, 1977. Pp.IX-XXVIII. .
72 Koenigsberger : H v H. P.38.