THE EXPERIMENTS THAT ESTABLISHED THE PRESERVATION OF ENERGY - PRESENTATION-COPY

COLDING, L(UDVIG) A(UGUST).

Undersögelse om de almindelige Naturkræfter og deres gjensidige Afhængighed og i særdeleshed om den ved visse faste Legemers Gnidning udviklede Varme [Survey on the Universal Forces of Nature and their Mutial Dependence and especially about the Heat that Emerges from the Friction of Certain Bodies]. + Om Magnetens Indvirkning paa blödt Jern [On the Effect of the MAgnet on Soft Iron]. + Om de almindelige Naturkræfter og deres gjensidige Afhængighed [On the Universal Forces of Nature and their Mutial Dependence]. (All three papers: Særskilt aftrykt af det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Skrifter, 5te Række, naturvidenskabelig og Matematisk Afdeling, 2det Bind.).

Kjöbenhavn (Copenhagen), 1850. 4to. All three bound together in the original blue-green blank glitted gift-binding. Spine and extremities worn (occasional minor loss of paper, especially to spine), and front hinge weak. A bit of brownspotting throughout. 26 pp., 2 folded engraved plates + 20 pp., 2 engraved plates (folded together) + 22 pp.

First editions, off-prints of all three papers (separately paginated and bound together in the original characteristic gift-binding on instruction from Colding), with presentation-inscription to front free end-paper: "Høivelbaarne/ Hr. General v. Schlegel C. af D. og D.M. pp./ med Høiagtelse/ fra/ Forfatteren." [Honoured/ Mr. General v. Schlegel C. of D. (honorary title) and D.M. pp. (honorary title)/ with high estimation/ from/ the author.].

These absolutely fundamental papers, by the (co-)discoverer of the principle of Conservation of Energy, prove Colding's assumption of "the imperishability of nature" and present for the first time in printing his elaborate experiments on the subject, contributing significantly to the cementation of his version of the principle of Conservation of Energy.

The principle of Conservation of Energy was discovered and proven independently and practically simultaneously by Colding, Meyer, Joule, and Helmholtz. As the other three, Colding had discovered the principle in the early 1840'ies, but up until 1843 (where he publishes his first breakthrough article on the subject), Colding's experiments had suggested that no force seems to be disappearing but merely undergoes a transformation, whereupon it becomes effective in other forms. On H.C. Oersted's recommendation (Colding was Oersted's assistent in their experiments with the heating of compressed water), however, Colding carried out a more elaborate version of his experiments, which made him able to verify his assumption that led to his principle of Conservation of Energy with much greater certainty. These new results were reported at the 1847 meeting of Scandinavian Scientists and published in 1850 as the two first papers present here.

Mayer's famous "Bemerkungen über das mechanische Aequivalent der Wärme" was published a year after Colding's papers, 1851.

Order-nr.: 41485