Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-94)

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821-1894)

Driven by both empirical knowledge and mathematical reasoning, Helmholtz made extraordinary contributions to natural philosophy, including both imaging and vision science. Fundamentally important examples include the Helmholtz theorem and the Helmholtz equation, which describe vector and scalar properties of light fields. The first informs us that fields are derived from point and current sourc...

Hermann von Helmholtz ( 1821 - 1894 ) Notes for Multimedia Fluid Mechanics

The breadth of Helmholtz’s interests and contributions is outstanding. He is one of the rare scientists able to be creative in domains, as diverse as medicine, anatomy, physiology, acoustics, fluid mechanics, physics, music, aesthetics, epistemology... Although he was a universal mind, he insisted on his preference for physics, both theoretical and experimental. He was among the too rare scient...

Letters of Hermann von Helmholtz to his parents 1837–1846, Boethius

Magda Whitrow emphasizes Wagner's other significant contribution to medicine. He discovered that cretinism was caused by malfunction of the thyroid gland. Why is he not given the credit for this discovery? Whitrow carefully shows that it was because Kocher, the man usually cited as the originator of this theory, published his version in a more prestigious journal. Indeed this raises the questio...

TINS -January 1983 Hermann Helmholtz and origins of sensory physiology

The role of great men, according to the historian Burckhardt, is to pry loose the collective thinking from empty chatter and repetition of outmoded viewpoints. Medical science in central Europe in the middle of the last century was ready for great men. For while the Enlightenment and the Napoleonic era had cleared centuries of political and intellectual cobwebs, restorative forces had made sign...

Von Helmholtz: His Ophthalmoscope and Its Centenary