The process of discovery has largely been a "black box" for those studying the development of science and technology. Anecdotal histories abound: for example, Archimedes taking a bath and shouting "Eureka|" upon his discovery of the laws of floatation or Kekule discovering the benzine ring in a dream about a snake biting its tale. While these "Eureka|" experiences certainly occur, what is clear from studies by historians and philosophers of science is that these sudden insights can only be fruitful in the context of a well-prepared mind of a scientist who has undertaken long careful investigations prior to gaining the sudden new insight. Dr. Caneva is studying one such example, a critical one in the history of science concerning the discovery of the first law of conservation of energy. This is the case of a simultaneous discovery--that is, more than one scientist discovered it at the same time. That the discovery is simultaneous indicates how much the ground had been prepared among scientists in the 19th century who were looking at the interchangability of forms of energy. Dr. Caneva is specifically examining the work of one of these co- discoverers, Julius Robert Mayer, who had a flash of insight in July, 1840 while letting blood in Java from the veins of European sailors. He observed the surprising redness of the venous blood drawn from the veins of these sailors when they are in the tropics compared to the color of the blood when drawn in Northern Europe. He concluded that a lower rate of metabolic combustion would suffice to maintain the body heat in the tropics and that consequently the body would extract less oxygen from the red arterial blood. He quickly concluded that the oxidation of foodstuff is the only possible source of animal heat. This line of reasoning led him, unlike others who had made similar observations, to a theory that motion and heat were a single, indestructible force in nature, and that this force was quantitatively conserved in any conversion. How Mayer reached this conclusion and what prepared him for this sudden insight has remained a puzzle. The central aim of Dr. Caneva's study is to render historically intelligible Mayer's formulation of what became the principle of conservation of energy. In addition to examining the creative thought processes of a single individual, this study will throw into relieve important aspects of the "common knowledge" of contemporary physiology, physics, and several little-known intellectual movements; assess the nature and significance of Naturphilosophie; and provide a basis for future comparative studies of Mayer and the other coformulators. In broader terms, it will provide much needed new information on the creative processes which lead to important scientific discoveries.
