HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ: BIOGRAPHY AND CONTRIBUTIONS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) was a German physician and scientist who made important contributions to physics, physiology, psychology, acoustics, optics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, hydrodynamics, mathematics, psychophysics, philosophy and music theory.

Helmholtz belonged to the legion of men who during the 19th century carried out transcendental interactions between science and technology. The man transcended his limits through new knowledge and deep and systematic exploration of the universe, living beings and the human mind, giving way to sciences and revising existing ones.

This scientist obtained a large number of recognitions for his contributions to science, among which were the honors given by the German emperor in 1883 and other honorary appointments granted by the governments of Scotland and Ireland. Likewise, two craters (one lunar and one on Mars) bear his name.

Historical context: the 19th century and the knowledge revolution

Although it is true that there was a revolution in all areas of knowledge, science was the favorite of the 19th century with its representation of molecular architecture, the discoveries of laws such as those of energy, the field of heredity and human evolution., among many others.

Likewise, the technological advances that took place in this century marked a before and after in societies, their habits and customs. An example of this is the lighting and the new systems of means of communication and transport (telegraph, telephone, rail, ships, automobiles).

Likewise, there were multiple mechanical work assistants who, for example, revolutionized and subscribed the world of medicine as a science.

The validity of knowledge was supported by the cultural influence of science to such an extent that everything that was outside the framework of science was not considered a form of knowledge.

Biography

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, was born on August 31, 1821 in Potsdam, Germany. From a very young age, his father - who was a teacher at a science institute - exerted a powerful and varied intellectual influence on him, which defined his inclination towards physics and philosophy, and later turned him into a doctor and scientist.

His mother was a descendant of the founder of Pennsylvania. She was a persevering and calm woman, traits that characterized and accompanied him throughout his life as a scientist.

Helmholtz was the eldest of four siblings, and due to a very fragile health condition, he remained locked up at home for the first seven years of life.

Despite this isolation, from an early age his father trained him in classical languages ​​as well as French, English and Italian, and introduced him to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

Studies

He studied medicine at the Friedrich Wilhelm Medical-Surgical Institute in Berlin. He also studied botany, chemistry, physics, languages, and history.

He was also interested in philosophy and the fine arts. Among his teachers were the anatomist Johann Lukas Shönlein and the physiologist Johannes Müller, who had a decisive influence on his career. In 1842 he received the degree of doctor with a work on pathological anatomy.

Professional life

He began his work as a doctor at the La Charite military hospital in Berlin. He then returned to Potsdam, where he set up his experimental physiology laboratory; his early research focused on the thermal aspects of physiological processes.

He returned to Berlin again and worked in the area of ​​applied physics with Heinrich Gustav Magnus and other researchers. He directed his interest towards the physiology of the ear and the eye, sensory organs; He conducted several experiments and realized that these were quantifiable physicochemical phenomena.

As a teacher, he taught anatomy classes at the Berlin Academy of Art School. He was also a professor of physiology and pathological anatomy at the University of Königsberg.

He proposed the creation of a Technical Physical Institute in Berlin; This project began in 1872 and ended in 1887. He was its first president and the director of the physics department.

Helmholtz argued that technological development was decisive in the economic development of his country; That is why he worked intensely on this project.

Death

After having led a fairly productive life focused on experimentation, research and teaching, Helmoltz died on September 8, 1894 in Charlotenburg, as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Contributions

His stay at Heilderberg was the most productive stage of his scientific life. At this time he basically devoted himself to physics, since there were already too many researchers in physiology.

-Designed appliances

Among the artifacts that Helmotz designed, the following stand out:

The kymograph

It is an electromechanical device used in the teaching laboratories of animal physiology in the department of Biology that allows recording movements and their temporal relationships.

Helmholtz estimated the rate of nerve impulse travel by stimulating the nerves at different distances from a muscle and measuring the time that muscle contraction occurred. In addition, in the process he introduced the technique of reaction time in physiology.

The Helmholtz resonator

This device was based on the Helmholtz cavity, another acoustic device. It consists of a kind of cavity that had a small hole towards the end of a neck, similar to a bottle. Within this space the air has the behavior of a resonant mass.

The ophthalmoscope

It was designed for fundus examination and contributed to the development of ophthalmology in the mid-19th century.

It was about lenses that were placed between the analyzed eye and the eye of the one who analyzed. A candle was lit looking for it to be reflected in the lenses, said light passed through the pupil and illuminated the analyzed eye from within.

-Theories

His contributions also include the development of various theories, which were decisive for the improvement of various scientific processes. Among the most important are the following:

Theory of perception

Helmholtz argued that perception required a logical, active and unconscious process on the part of the perceiver, which uses the information supplied by the sensation to infer the properties of external objects and phenomena. In this context, Helmholtz anticipated much of later psychology.

Theory of electromagnetism

He also formulated a new theory of electromagnetism by applying the principle associated with the least action to electrodynamics, all this framed in the area of ​​analytical mechanics.

He studied the electrolytic effects of current by intuiting the notion of quanta, and contributed extensively to thermodynamics and physical chemistry by applying the principle of conservation of energy to chemical processes.

Publications

During his travels through Berlin, Postdam and Königsberg Heilderberg developed much of his scientific work. The highlights of his work are the following:

- On the conservation of force (1847).

- On the sensation of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music (1863).

- Manual of Physiological Optics (1867).

- On the origin and meaning of geometric axioms (1870).

- The facts of perception (1878).

Other works

- On the metabolic expenditure of muscular activity.

- The integrals of the hydrodynamic equations corresponding to turbulent movements.

- The discontinuous movements of fluids.

- Electrical distribution.

- The nature of the radiation.

- Electrodynamics.

- The laws of non-constant electric currents in extensive material conductors.

- The formation of the planetary system.

- Principle of minimum action in mechanics.

- The natural sciences in all the sciences.

- Thought and medicine.

Helmholtz and teaching in the West

The methodology of university education in Germany proposed an innovation in the field of higher education, favoring both scientific-technical teaching and research and relations with the industrial field.

German universities defended the idea that one of the duties of university professors was to produce new knowledge; thus, professors had academic freedom and autonomy in teaching, and students could move from one university to another.

Western societies gave an important and remarkable boost to the sciences. The bourgeoisie was the group that benefited the most from supporting the scientific enterprise, since they understood that it implied industrial development.

Business and science

This link between business and science from the second half of the nineteenth century was capitalized during the twentieth century; the benefits were reciprocal, since science received a vigorous stimulus that accelerated the pure investigations.

High-level education was reformulated in order to train specialized professionals who soon became work teams financially supported by different governments or by private companies.

Research spread and proliferated enormously during this century, which resulted in the creation of new scientific institutions in which research work and results were disseminated.

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was one of the most important scientists of this generation, in which he highlighted a series of scientific discoveries with applications and technological development that allowed the definitive step towards the consecration of medicine as a science.

He was a versatile professional, mastering different areas of knowledge allowed him to be avant-garde. He managed to make his mark and transcend as one of the most prolific scientists of the 19th century.

References

1. Eréndira Güemez-Sandoval. "Hermann von Helmholtz and the ophthalmoscope" on Medigraphic. Retrieved on December 1, 2018 from Medigraphic; medigraphic.com
2. Cahan, David. "Helmholtz in Gilded-Age America: The International Electrical Congress of 1893 and the Relations of Science and Technology" in Taylor and Francis Online. Retrieved on December 1, 2018 from Taylor and Francis Online: tandfonline.com
3. "Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand Von (1821-1894)" in MCN Biographies. Retrieved on December 1, 2018 from MCN Biography: mcnbiografias.com
4. Keeler CR. "The ophthalmoscope in the lifetime of Hermann von Helmholtz" on JAMA Network. Retrieved on December 1, 2018 from JAMA Network: jamanetwork.com
5. Editor's Note. "What is… the kymograph?" (1982) in Sciences. Retrieved on December 1, 2018 from Sciences: revistaciencias.unam.mx
6. Karpinsky, Louis. "Hermann Von Helmholtz" in Retrieved on December 1, 2018 from Jstor: jstor.org