Ludwig August Colding (13 July 1815 – 21 March 1888) was a

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

and physicist who articulated the principle of

conservation of energy In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be ''conserved'' over time. This law, first proposed and tested by Émilie du Châtelet, means th ...

contemporaneously with, and independently of, James Prescott Joule and

Julius Robert von Mayer Julius Robert von Mayer (25 November 1814 – 20 March 1878) 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 ...

though his contribution was largely overlooked and neglected.

Life

Born in

Holbæk Holbæk () is a town in Denmark and the seat of Holbæk municipality with a population of 29,608 (1 January 2022).officer in the Danish privateer service. Ludwig's mother, Anna Sophie, was the daughter of a clergyman and imbued the household with a deeply religious sentiment. Around the time of Ludwig's birth, his father retired from seafaring and took up a position as a farm manager. He seems to have been particularly unsuited to such a profession and this, together with the upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars in Denmark, subjected the young Ludwig to a rather irregular childhood and schooling.P. F. Dahl (1981) "Colding, Ludwig August" in )

Hans Christian Ørsted Hans Christian Ørsted ( , ; often rendered Oersted in English; 14 August 17779 March 1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, which was the first connection found between electricity ...

was an old family friend and arranged for Colding to serve an apprenticeship under a craftsman in Copenhagen, Colding achieving the status of journeyman in 1836. Ørsted had, by this stage, become something of a mentor to the young Colding and encouraged him to enroll at the Copenhagen Polytechnic Institute. The Institute had been founded at Ørsted's initiative and he offered continual advice and support to the young Colding. At the polytechnic Colding showed ''the most undaunted diligence and the most conscientious precision'' and in 1839 Ørsted engaged Colding to assist on some exacting measurements of the release of heat by compressed water. Colding graduated in 1841 and worked as a teacher before being appointed inspector of roads and bridges in Copenhagen in 1845. Colding's importance and influence grew until he was appointed state engineer for Copenhagen in 1857. He oversaw a vast range of public housing, transport, lighting and sanitation projects and gained a high reputation throughout Denmark and internationally. He retired from professional engineering in 1886.

Scientific work

Colding found time for private scientific work in fluid mechanics, hydrology,

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...

and meteorology as well as electromagnetism and thermodynamics. He was largely responsible for founding the

Danish Meteorological Institute The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI; da, Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut) is the official Danish meteorological institute, administrated by the Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate. The institute makes weather forecasts and observati ...

in 1872. However, he is best remembered for what he himself termed the "principle of imperishability of the forces of nature." Colding was influenced by D'Alembert's principle of "lost forces", by

, by the ''

Naturphilosophie ''Naturphilosophie'' (German for "nature-philosophy") is a term used in English-language philosophy to identify a current in the philosophical tradition of German idealism, as applied to the study of nature in the earlier 19th century. German sp ...

'' to which Ørsted subscribed and by his own religious upbringing. Colding first fulfilled his ambition to work alongside Ørsted, who was conducting experiments on the compressibility of water, in 1839. He summarised this work with a review of other data on compression and friction of various materials in his first published scientific paper. In this work, he went on to state that "the quantities of heat evolved are, in every case, proportional to the lost moving forces" though he did not calculate a

mechanical equivalent of heat In the history of science, the mechanical equivalent of heat states that motion and heat are mutually interchangeable and that in every case, a given amount of work would generate the same amount of heat, provided the work done is totally converte ...

as Joule was to do in the same year. With Ørsted's support, a further series of quantitative experiments was sponsored by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, culminating in a report in 1847. By 1850, Colding had obtained a value for the mechanical equivalent of heat, some 14% lower than the modern value (4.1860 J·

cal Cal or CAL may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Cal'' (novel), a 1983 novel by Bernard MacLaverty * "Cal" (short story), a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov * ''Cal'' (1984 film), an Irish drama starring John Lynch and Helen Mir ...

⁻¹) at a time when Joule had measured 4.159 J·cal⁻¹. A subsequent calculation by Colding in 1852 yielded a value only 3% below modern values.

Works

* 1856: ''Scientific reflections on the relationship between intellectual life’s activity and the general forces of nature''* * 1863
''On the History of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy''
Philosophical Magazine, Series 4, 27: 56–64 via

Biodiversity Heritage Library The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL operates as worldwide consortiumof natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working toge ...

* 1871
''On the Universal Powers of Nature and their Mutual Dependence''
Philosophical Magazine, Series 4, 42: 1–20

Legacy

Colding's thermodynamic work was neglected both in his native Denmark and internationally though, from an historical perspective, he seems to deserve no less credit in the development of the concept of energy than Joule or Mayer. However, his contributions to meteorology and the built environment of Copenhagen are notable in themselves.

Honours

*Elected a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

in 1875. *Cross of Honour of the

Order of the Dannebrog The Order of the Dannebrog ( da, Dannebrogordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry instituted in 1671 by Christian V. Until 1808, membership in the order was limited to fifty members of noble or royal rank, who formed a single class known a ...

, (1886)

References

External links

Ludwig Colding
at Hmolpedia {{DEFAULTSORT:Colding, Ludwig A. 1815 births 1888 deaths Danish engineers Danish physicists Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Danish civil engineers People from Holbæk Municipality