HELMHOLTZ, Mémoire sur la conservation de la force, 1869

First french edition.
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) was a German polymath, doctor of medicine and philosophy, professor of physiology at the University of Heidelberg, and a major figure in 19th-century science. His Mémoire sur la conservation de la force (Memoir on the Conservation of Force), originally published in 1847, is a foundational text in physics, laying the groundwork for the principle of conservation of energy. This work demonstrated that various phenomena (mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical) could be explained by a single unifying principle. This French translation by Louis Pérard made this seminal text accessible to the French-speaking public and greatly contributed to the dissemination of Helmholtz's ideas in France.