# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/hermann-von-helmholtz
# Generated: 2026-08-31T14:44:51.545Z

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url: "https://fame.am/person/hermann-von-helmholtz"
name: "Hermann von Helmholtz"
slug: "hermann-von-helmholtz"
description: "He figured out that energy doesn't vanish — it just changes shape. Helmholtz tied the first law of thermodynamics together in its most sweeping form, then spent the rest of his life cracking how the eye sees and the ear hears, linking physics to perception in ways that remade both."
tagline: "German physicist and physiologist (1821-1894)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Hermann_von_Helmholtz.jpg"
gender: "male"
country:
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  isoCode: "DE"
category:
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  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1821-08-31"
deathDate: "1894-09-08"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Born in 1821, Helmholtz trained as a physician but his mind bent toward physics and mathematics. He formulated the conservation of energy principle in its broadest possible terms — work he shares credit for with Mayer, Joule, and Bernoulli, but which he stated most completely. From there he pivoted to the mechanics of human sensation: the mathematics of the eye, theories of how we perceive space and color, the physics of sound and tone. His work on the electrical double layer and chemical thermodynamics ran parallel. Late in life he waded into philosophy, arguing that the laws of perception and the laws of nature were bound together, and his Kantian method helped spark the neo-Kantian movement. In 1883, Emperor William II gave him the "von." He died in 1894, and Germany's largest research institution now carries his name.