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

for the mechanical equivalent of heat and in 1852 in his first paper on
electricity 247, which is at the origin of the controversy, he "applied his heat laws
to electrical discharge and thermoelectricity" 248. He thus united mechanics, heat
and electricity in a thorough study based on mechanical principles. Clausius later
dedicated great efforts to an electrodynamical theory that he saw as part of his
own mechanical theory of heat 249. In fact in 1865 he started republishing his
papers on electrodynamics in the second volume of the first edition of Die
Mechanische Wärmetheorie 250. In 1879 he went much further: for the second
edition of the book he rewrote the entire second volume and dedicated it entirely
to his own interpretation of electrodynamics; thus the book appeared with the
surprising title of Die Mechanische Wärmetheorie Bd2 Elektrodynamik : Die
Mechanische Behandung der Elektricität 251. In this volume, where Clausius
"demonstrated" his electrodynamic force law of 1875 252 based on a kinetic
potential, very little room is left for Maxwell's and Helmholtz's electrical theories.
247 Clausius, Rudolf. "On the Mechanical Equivalent of an Electric Discharge, and the
Heating of the Conducting Wire which accompanies it." In Tyndall and Francis Scientific
Memoirs on Natural Philosophy 1 (1853): 1-32 and 200-9.
activity.
248 Jungnickel,C. and McCormmach, R. Intellectual Mastery vol.1, p.167.
249 Historians have payd very little attention to this not minor aspect of his scientific
250 Clausius, Rudolf. Die Mechanische Wärmetheorie 2 vols Braunschweig, 1865.
The first volume was translated in English in 1867.
251 The first volume had already appeared: Clausius, Rudolf. Die Mechanische
Wärmetheorie 2nd ed 1st vol. Braunschweig, 1876. (An English translation of the second
edition of the first volume appeared in 1879: The Mechanical Theory of Heat London 1879).
The second volume followed three years later: Clausius, Rudolf. Die Mechanische
Wärmetheorie 2nd ed. 2nd vol. Braunschweig,1879. A French translation of both volumes of
the third German edition was made by F.Folie and E.Ronkar, Bruxelles :1897-8.
252 Clausius' law admitted, as Weber's one, forces depending on velocities and
accelerations; but, at variance with Weber, the velocities were 'absolute' (respect to the ether)
and thus the forces were also non central. Clausius' ether explains Helmholtz's 1882 remark
about the loss of intellegibility . See n.94 above. Clausius, Rudolf. "Ueber ein neues
Grundgesetz der Elektrodynamik." In Pogg Ann 156 (1875): 657-60; tr. in Phil Mag 1 (1876):
69-71.