Talk:Julius Robert von Mayer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, which collaborates on articles related to physics. | |
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale. [FAQ] | |
| ??? | This article has not yet received an importance rating within physics. | |
|
Please rate this article, and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. |
||
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. | ||
| B | This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ] (If you rated the article, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.) |
||
I wrote a rather shoddy single page article on Mayer for biology class; however, I don't think it's good enough to put up ust yet. If someone would like to rewrite part of it and wikify it, it would help expand this stub. The Mayers' Relation equation will need added back in as well, or separated to a different page.
Julius Robert von Mayer was a German physicist, born on November 25, 1814. He described the chemical process of oxidization as the primary source of energy for all living creatures. Even as a child, Mayer showed great interest in mechanical mechanisms; in fact, one of his hobbies was the construction of various electrical devices and air pumps. In 1832, he attended Eberhard Karls University, where he studied medicine. After being arrested and expelled for wearing the colors of a forbidden organization (??), he traveled throughout Switzerland, France, and the Dutch East Indies, and gained additional interest in mathematics and engineering from Carl Baur, a private tutor.
By 1841 he had returned to practice to medicine, but physics was his new passion. That same year, he completed his first paper, On the Quantitative and Qualitative Determination of Forces, which was largely ignored at the time. He also became interested in heat and its motion. Mayer presented a value for the mechanical equivalent of heat, in his proof of what is now known as Mayers' Relation, which states that the specific heat of a gas at constant pressure minus the specific heat of a gas at constant volume is equal to the gas constant. The credit for this, along with his discovery of oxidization, was given to James Joule, since Mayer's work had been overlooked due to his lack of prominence. As a result, he spent some time in mental institutions, recovering from a near suicide and the death of several of his children.
Bennett, Clark. "Julius Robert von Mayer." Founding Fathers of Relativity.14 Mar 2005. <http://www.usd.edu/phys/courses/phys300/gallery/clark/vonmayer.html>
