Robert Mayer Quotes

Julius Robert von Mayer was a German physician, chemist, and physicist and one of the founders of thermodynamics. He is best known for enunciating in 1841 one of the original statements of the conservation of energy or what is now known as one of the first versions of the first law of thermodynamics, namely that "energy can be neither created nor destroyed". In 1842, Mayer described the vital chemical process now referred to as oxidation as the primary source of energy for any living creature. His achievements were overlooked and priority for the discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat was attributed to James Joule in the following year. He also proposed that plants convert light into chemical energy. Wikipedia  

✵ 25. November 1814 – 20. March 1878
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Famous Robert Mayer Quotes

“With heartfelt conviction I say it: A sound philosophy must and can be nothing else than a propaedeutic to Christianity.”

Kneller, Karl Alois. 1911. pp. 18. Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science https://archive.org/stream/christianitylead00kneluoft#page/18/mode/2up. London.
Variant translation: "From the bottom of my heart I say a true philosophy can and should be nothing but a propaganda for the Christian religion." (in Western Christian Advocate, Volume 77. 1911. Methodist Church
Original: Aus vollem Herzen rufe ich es aus: Eine richtige Philosophie darf und kann nichts anderes sein als eine Propädeutik für die christliche Religion. (As quoted in "Robert Mayer und das Energieprinzip, 1842-1942: Gedenkschrift zur 100. Wiederkehr der Entdeckung des Energieprinzips" (1942), p. 328

“Nature has put itself the problem of how to catch in flight light streaming to the Earth and to store the most elusive of all powers in rigid form. The plants take in one form of power, light; and produce another power, chemical difference.”

in Die organische Bewegung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Stoffwechsel, [Julius Robert von Mayer, Die Mechanik der Wärme in gesammelten Schriften, Cotta, 1867, 53-54]
Original: Die Natur hat sich die Aufgabe gestellt, das der Erde zuströmende Licht im Fluge zu erhaschen, und die beweglichste aller Kräfte, in starre Form umgewandelt, aufzuspeichern. Zur Erreichung dieses Zweckes hat sie die Erdkruste mit Organismen überzogen, welche lebend das Sonnenlicht in sich aufnehmen und unter Verwendung dieser Kraft eine fortlaufende Summe chemischer Differenzen erzeugen.

“Were it not for this inalterable armony, pre-established by God, between subject and object, all our thinking would be necessarily without fruit.”

As translated by Julio Antonio Gonzalo (2008) in The Intelligible Universe: An Overview of the Last Thirteen Billion Years . World Scientific. p. 297
Naturwissenschaftliche vorträge (1871). p. 31
Original: Was aber subjektiv richtig gedacht ist, ist auch objektiv wahr, Ohne diese von Gott zwischen der subjektiven und objektiven Welt prästabilierte ewige Harmonie wäre all unser Denken unfruchtbar

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