to bring him success and acclaim. His
reputation grew both among scientists
and the general public. He travelled to
France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland and
lectured widely in Germany. Helmholtz
became the rektor (president) of the University of Berlin from 1877 to 1878. In
1888, the Physikalisch-Technische Reich-sanstalt (PTR, the Physical and Technical
Institute of the Reich) was founded and
Helmholtz was named its first president.
One section of the institute was to provide
the precise spectroscopic data on black
body radiation that stimulated the theoretical studies of Lord Rayleigh, James
Jeans, Wilhelm Wien and Max Planck.
Helmholtz continued his research
into disparate fields of physics: color theory and space perception, non-Euclidean
geometry, the formation of clouds and
thunderstorms, cohesion in liquids, the
electrolysis of water, the energy of winds
and waves, chemical thermodynamics
(the concept of “free energy”), the least
action principle in electrodynamics, electromagnetic theory of color dispersion
and sensory physiology.
Perhaps less known is his important
insights into the relationships between
science and philosophy, art, culture
and society. (See sidebar on the previous page.) In addition to his technical
accomplishments, Helmholtz is remembered as someone who popularized
science. From 1853 to 1892, he gave
about 25 public lectures that addressed
the nature and purpose of science;
the optimal political and institutional
conditions for promoting science; and
the connections between civilization and
science. These lectures and others on the
lives and works of prominent scientists
were reprinted in the Vorträge und Reden,
which consisted of several volumes and
appeared in five editions. Helmholtz
envisioned that broad public awareness
and understanding of science would
help to counter what he perceived as the
irrational aspects of German society—its
mysticism and spiritualism.
Helmholtz also sought to educate Germany’s rulers and political and industrial
leaders about the great practical benefits
that science and modern technology could
Helmholtz sought to
educate Germany’s
rulers and political
and industrial leaders
about the great
practical benefits that
science and modern
technology could offer.
offer. He strived in these lectures to show
the nuances of the process of knowledge generation that is called science.
He understood that scientific progress
depended on financial resources, and that
researchers had a duty to explain their
discoveries to their benefactors as well as
to describe how their work had benefited
society and the state.
For Helmholtz, science was not about
accumulating disparate facts; it was a
process of inductive logic that derives
general laws of nature. Thus, the metric
for scientific progress was the development of general laws—e.g., the law of
conservation of energy.
Helmholtz did not get overly involved
in state or university politics, but he did
analyze the German university system.
He appreciated that the state funded
much research without interfering or
controlling it. He also lauded the fact
that professors were active researchers
and that intellectual freedom applied
to both students and professors. In fact,
the title of his inaugural lecture when
he became rektor at Berlin was: “On
academic freedom in German universities.” On balance, it is important to state
that he failed to notice or at least to
communicate the negative aspects of the
German university system, including its
insidious authoritarian aspects and its
pervasive discrimination against Catholics, Jews and women.
Helmholtz’s scientific contributions
were widely recognized with many
honors and awards. He received the first
Graefe Medal (named after Albrecht
von Graefe, the famous Berlin ophthal-
mologist) from the Ophthalmologische
Gesellschaft, the Copley Medal from
the Royal Society of London and the
Becquerel Medal of the Royal Society of
Chemistry. In addition, he was granted
an honorary doctor-of-law degree from
Cambridge University. He was appointed
an honorary member of the National
Academy of Sciences in Washington,
D.C., and an honorary member of the
Imperial Russian Academy of Medicine.
Barry R. Masters ( brmail2001@yahoo.com) is
a Fellow of AAAS, OSA and SPIE. He
is with the department of biological
engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Member
[ References and Resources ]
>> H. Helmholtz. Vorträge und Reden, Fünfte
Auflage, Erster Band, Zweiter Band, Braunschweig, Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn, 1903.
>> A. Gullstrand. Einführung in die Methoden
der Dioptrik des Auges des Menschen,
Leipzig, S. Hirzel, 1911.
>> H. Helmholtz. Handbuch der Physiologis-chen Optik, Dritte Auflage, English translation
of the third edition, three volumes (1909-1911)
by J.P.C. Southall, Washington, D.C., Optical
Society of America, 1924.
>> H. von Helmholtz. Beschreibung eines
Augen-Spiegels zur Untersuchung der Net-zhaut im lebenden Auge, Berlin, A. Förstner,
1851. Description of an ophthalmoscope for
examining the retina in the living eye. English
translation by Robert W. Hollenhorst, Chicago, Arch. Ophthalmol. 46, 565-83 (1951).
>> H. Helmholtz. On the Sensations of Tone as
a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music,
English translation of the fourth edition (1877)
by A.J. Ellis, N. Y., Dover Publications, 1954.
>> B.R. Masters. Noninvasive Diagnostic
Techniques in Ophthalmology, N. Y., Springer-Verlag (1990).
>> H.E. Henkes. “Helmholtz, the first reformer
of ophthalmology,” Documenta Ophthalmo-logica 81, 17-25 (1992).
>> D. Cahan. Hermann von Helmholtz and the
Foundations of Nineteenth-Century Science,
Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press,
1993.
>> B.R. Masters. “The scanning laser ophthalmoscope: a new view on the retina,” Br. J.
Ophthalmol. 78, 81 (1994).
>> B.R. Masters. “David Maurice’s contributions
to optical ophthalmic instrumentation: roots
of the scanning slit clinical confocal microscope,” Exp. Eye Res. 78, 315-26 (2004).
