What appeared to the earlier physicists to be the constant quantity of heat is nothing more than the whole motive power of the motion of heat, which remains constant so long as it is not transformed into other forms of work, or results afresh from them.

--Academic Discourse (Heidelberg 1862)


Students and associates
Other students and research associates of Helmholtz at Berlin included Max Planck Heinrich Kayser Eugen Goldstein Wilhelm Wien Arthur König Henry Augustus Rowland A. This was a rejection of the speculative tradition of Naturphilosophie which was at that time a dominant philosophical paradigm in German physiology. As a philosopher he is known for his philosophy of science ideas on the relation between the laws of perception and the laws of nature the science of aesthetics and ideas on the civilizing power of science.

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (August 31 1821 – September 8 1894) was a German physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science. In physics he is known for his theories on the conservation of energy work in electrodynamics chemical thermodynamics and on a mechanical foundation of thermodynamics. In physiology and psychology he is known for his mathematics of the eye theories of vision ideas on the visual perception of space color vision research and on the sensation of tone perception of sound and empiricism.