Who are you looking for?

Install Famoose

Keep Famoose on your home screen or desktop for easy access.

Open this site in Chrome or Edge and look for Install app in the browser menu or address bar. If no install option appears, you can bookmark Famoose instead.

Famoose.co
Appearance
Text size
Page width
Colour
Discover›Science
Contents
Julius von Mayer
Physicist

Julius von Mayer

Famoose for

Helping establish the principle of conservation of energy.

Heat and work · Energy in organisms

Born
25 November 1814
Birthplace
Heilbronn
Died
20 March 1878

More people

Marie CurieDiscovering polonium and radium.Albert EinsteinDeveloping the theory of relativity.Charles DarwinExplaining evolution through natural selection.

Julius von Mayer

Julius Robert von Mayer was a German physician and investigator of heat whose work contributed to the foundations of thermodynamics.

Early life

Education

Studied medicine at Tübingen and qualified in 1838.

Career

  1. 1840

    Ship’s physician

    Travelled to Java while working as a doctor.

  2. 1841

    Return to Heilbronn

    Began developing his ideas about heat and energy.

  3. 1842

    Energy paper

    Published an early statement of energy conservation.

Contributions

Heat and work

Related heat to mechanical effects.

Energy in organisms

Considered oxidation and the conversion of sunlight by plants.

Beyond research

Family

Settled in Heilbronn and married in 1841.

Sources & photo creditBiography and career ↗Biographical references ↗

Original photograph. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.

Photo: Friedrich Berrer. Public domain · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.