Julius robert mayer biography

March 20 marks the passing of Julius Robert von Mayer. Mayer was a German physician who had a hobby of studying physics. Most of his work centered around how energy was transferred from one form to another.

He was one of the first to recognize that plants converted light into chemical energy, and the process of oxidation was the primary source of energy in living creatures. He also outlined the earliest versions of what would become the first law of thermodynamics by writing “Energy is neither created nor destroyed”.

He attempted to publish his ideas as conservation of force, but had several basic errors due to his lack of formal physics training and was largely ignored.

Julius robert mayer biography wikipedia

James Joule published his work a year later describing the conservation of energy and mechanical equivalent of heat and gained recognition as the ‘founder of modern thermodynamics’. This and the death of two of his children drove Mayer to the brink of suicide and spent time in mental institutions.

After he left