The Second Physicist: On the History of Theoretical Physics in Germany

Description

§7.1 "Electrical Research at Göttingen and Leipzig: Weber" (pp. 154-68) are §9.3 "Weber at Göttingen" (pp. 232-38) are excellent summaries of Weber's research program.
§1.3 "Nature, Aims, and Methods of Theoretical Physics" (pp. 11-38) mentions Boltzmann's criticism of Weber's theory, which I never knew (p. 22):

Boltzmann said that the weakest point of the physics he learned as a student was Wilhelm Weber’s “theory of electrodynamics,” which for “all its cleverness and all its mathematical finesse…carried the stamp of the artificial so that only a very few enthusiastic followers believed in its correctness.” [Boltzmann, “Development of the Methods,” 102.]

It seems Botzmann is speaking only of Weber's earlier researches. I wonder what he thought of Weber's later atomic theories.

mentions Chladni and Weber, that latter having "always been of the opinion that acoustics belonged to those parts of mathematical physics where the most brilliant advances are still to be made." ("Gauss to Weber, 2 April 1830, Gauss Papers, Göttingen UB, Ms. Dept.", quoted in Jungnickel & McCormmach 2017 p. 108).

• Explores the rise of theoretical physics in 19th century Germany
• Shows how physics developed within German universities
• Characterizes the work of theoretical physics

This book explores the rise of theoretical physics in 19th century Germany. The authors show how the junior second physicist in German universities over time became the theoretical physicist, of equal standing to the experimental physicist. Gustav Kirchhoff, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Max Planck are among the great German theoretical physicists whose work and career are examined in this book.

Physics was then the only natural science in which theoretical work developed into a major teaching and research specialty in its own right. Readers will discover how German physicists arrived at a well-defined field of theoretical physics with well understood and generally accepted goals and needs. The authors explain the nature of the work of theoretical physics with many examples, taking care always to locate the research within the workplace.

The book is a revised and shortened version of Intellectual Mastery of Nature: Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein [Assis 1994 appendix B cites this re: Clausius and his force law], a two-volume work by the same authors. This new edition represents a reformulation of the larger work. It retains what is most important in the original work, while including new material, sharpening discussions, and making the research more accessible to readers. It presents a thorough examination of a seminal era in physics.