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 Professor, Privatdozent Ricardo Lopes Coelho, University of Lisbon, Technical University of Berlin: On the discovery of energy The history of science teaches us that energy was discovered in the 1840s. Mayer, Joule, Colding and Helmholtz have generally been considered the discoverers. On the basis of their texts, it can be verified that they agree on the thesis ‘heat is not a substance’ and the mechanical equivalent of heat. They disagree concerning the nature of heat and the justification of this equivalence. These different interpretations of the experiments played an important role in the development of the concept of energy. The concept, which appeared in the 1860s and was directly based on the mechanical equivalent of heat, disappeared in the first half of the 20th century.  Ricardo
Lopes Coelho has been a ‘‘Professor Auxiliar’’ at the
Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, since
1997, and a ‘‘Privatdozent’’ at the Technical University
of Berlin, since 2001. He studied piano, philosophy and
physics in Portugal, did his PhD at the TU-Berlin and
his Habilitation in History and Philosophy of Exact
Sciences at the same University. Among others, he
published some articles concerning his main research
interest, the understanding of scientific concepts and
principles through its past and philosophy. He is the
author of two books: Zur Konzeption der Kraft der
Mechanik (On the Concept of Force in Mechanics) (2001)
and O Conceito de Energia: Passado e Sentido (On the
Concept of Energy: History and Meaning) (2006).Prof. Coelho’s visit has been kindly sponsored by the Danish Network for Philosophy of Science. tirsdag den 14. juni, kl.
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