HERMANN VON
HELMHOLTZ
A 19th Century Renaissance Man
Barry R. Masters
Hermann von Helmholtz was many things to many people: physicist, teacher,
medical doctor, aesthete and much more. The German polymath drew on
his extensive knowledge of many fields to invent the ophthalmoscope—a
device that revolutionized ophthalmology—when he was just 29 years
old. He went on to conduct critical investigations into nerve conduction,
physiological optics and the sensations of tone, and he worked to foster
public understanding of science and to improve science education.
Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, N. Y./Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany
f any life exemplifies the value of interdisciplinary education and good mentoring, it
is that of Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz. From the time he was a boy,
The first of five children, he was born on August 31, 1821, in Potsdam, Germany. His
father Ferdinand studied philology and philosophy and taught in a Prussian Gymnasium in
Potsdam. At the age of nine, Helmholtz began his own studies in a Gymnasium. His interest
in natural science and physics contrasted sharply with his abhorrence of memorizing facts.
Early on, Helmholtz’s parents fostered in him a belief in the value of education and a love
of music and the arts. While at the Gymnasium, he studied several languages, including
Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, English, French, German and Italian, as well as subjects in
the humanities, the natural sciences and mathematics.
Although he was interested in physics from an early age, his family’s economic situation
precluded him from furthering his academic study of the subject at that time. As an alternative, he applied for a scholarship to the Royal Medical-Surgical Friedrich-Wilhelms Institute
in Berlin—a medical school designed to train military physicians to study medicine while
minoring in physics. A stipulation of the scholarship was that the candidate, upon completing his or her medical studies, would be required to work for several years as a Prussian
military physician.
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