Georg Helm
Encyclopedia
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
.
Helm graduated from high school from the Annenschule in Dresden in 1867. Thereafter he studied mathematics and natural sciences at the Dresden Polytechnical School, and then at the universities of Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. from 1871 bis 1873.
Helm first taught at the Annenschule, his high school alma mater. Then he taught mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
und physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
at the Dresden University of Technology
Dresden University of Technology
The Technische Universität Dresden is the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, the largest university in Saxony and one of the 10 largest universities in Germany with 36,066 students...
and at the Royal Saxon Polytechnic from 1888 until 1922. He was an interdisciplinarian, whose teaching responsibilities included a seminar on insurance statistics. Helm coined the term “mathematical chemistry
Mathematical chemistry
Mathematical chemistry is the area of research engaged in novel applications of mathematics to chemistry; it concerns itself principally with the mathematical modeling of chemical phenomena...
”. His work in the area of economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
postulated that money was the economic equivalent of the lowest form of social entropy
Social entropy
Social entropy is a macrosociological systems theory. It is a measure of the natural decay within a social system. It can refer to the decomposition of social structure or of the disappearance of social distinctions...
as described in his work “Teachings on Energy” (in German, Lehre von der Energie, 1887 http://www.archive.org/details/dielehrevondere00helmgoog).
Selected works
- Lehre von der Energie (Leipzig, 1887)http://www.archive.org/details/dielehrevondere00helmgoog
- Grundzüge der mathematischen Chemie (1894)http://books.google.com/books?id=V7BgQAzf8hkC&dq=Grundz%C3%BCge+der+mathematischen+Chemie+Helm&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=-FCZKRXwYF&sig=vXmU5-NygXLMCwlaepTgjo6jd1o&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA1,M1The principles of mathematical chemistry: The energetics of chemical phenomena (New York, 1897)http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=cyUuAAAAYAAJ&dq=The+principles+of+mathematical+chemistry&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=_0vguXVooq&sig=BuTkoJBEykcznnXoKZCYuOwT-6k&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
- Die Energetik (Leipzig, 1898)
- Die Theorien der Elektrodynamik nach ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Leipzig, 1904)http://books.google.com/books?id=y-NdHGW9hG8C&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=Die+Theorien+der+Elektrodynamik+nach+ihrer+geschichtlichen+Entwicklung+helm&source=bl&ots=6n12y8OZAC&sig=Xp0VD34EO8MDTqcEkbIUrH0mmbw&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP1,M1
- Die Grundlehren der höheren Mathematik (Leipzig, 1910)