Hermann von Helmholtz 



CHAPTER I 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE 



TJERMANN LUDWIG FERDINAND 

 -Fl VON HELMHOLTZ was born on August 

 3 ist, 1821, at Potsdam, near Berlin. He was the son 

 of Ferdinand Helmholtz, a teacher of philology and 

 philosophy in the Gymnasium, a man of high culture 

 and of great general intelligence, who was much 

 respected for the thorough way in which he per- 

 formed the duties of his position, and for the integrity 

 of his character. His mother was the daughter of a 

 Hanoverian artillery officer of the name of Penne, 

 a lineal descendant of William Penn, the great Quaker 

 who founded Pennsylvania ; while the grandmother, on 

 his mother's side, sprang from a family of French 

 refugees, of the name of Sauvage. Thus Helmholtz 

 had German, English and French blood in his veins. 

 We are free to speculate as to the origin of his great 

 A 



