
Left: in 1946, American physical chemist Gilbert Lewis, central founder of modern chemical thermodynamics, at the age of 70, was coincidentally found dead in his laboratory next to an open bottle of poisonous liquid cyanide, following a lunch with a long-time rival physical chemist Irving Langmuir, who years earlier had culled off his bonding theories to win the 1932 Nobel Prize in chemistry, whereas Lewis never won despite 35 nominations (and several student Laureates). Center: in 1906, Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann hung himself in his hotel room, while on vacation with his family, after a decade of battle with the energeticists (see: energetics debate), Wilhelm Ostwald and Ernst Mach, in particular, who would not accept the existence of atoms. Right: in 1850, German physician-physicist Robert Mayer, after discovering that James Joule had claimed discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat, while his work was still unknown, jumped out of a third-story window, and was later put in an asylum.

Founders of thermodynamics and suicide 2

Left: in 1946, American physical chemist Gilbert Lewis, central founder of modern chemical thermodynamics, at the age of 70, was coincidentally found dead in his laboratory next to an open bottle of poisonous liquid cyanide, following a lunch with a long-time rival physical chemist Irving Langmuir, who years earlier had culled off his bonding theories to win the 1932 Nobel Prize in chemistry, whereas Lewis never won despite 35 nominations (and several student Laureates). Center: in 1906, Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann hung himself in his hotel room, while on vacation with his family, after a decade of battle with the energeticists (see: energetics debate), Wilhelm Ostwald and Ernst Mach, in particular, who would not accept the existence of atoms. Right: in 1850, German physician-physicist Robert Mayer, after discovering that James Joule had claimed discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat, while his work was still unknown, jumped out of a third-story window, and was later put in an asylum.

In phenomena, founders of thermodynamics and suicide (LR:2) refers to the noticeable curiosity that among thermodynamics founders (Mayer, Haber, Lewis, Bridgman), statistical mechanics/statistical thermodynamics founders (Boltzmann, Ehrenfest), human chemical thermodynamics founders (Adams [his wife], Wieninger [Goethe's protege], and Freud), and human affinity chemistry pioneers (Goethe [novel Werther], Shelley), among others, a curiously large number are associated with suicides or suicide attempts. This peculiar coincidence was summarized famously by American physicist David Goodstein, in the opening lines to his 1975 book States of Matter, as follows: [9]

“Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously.”

In sum, thermodynamics, what many consider to be the most intellectually difficult subject of all, is noted for its prevalence of suicides and suicide attempts by a large percentage of its founders, including German physicist and physician Robert Mayer (jumping out of window), Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (hanging), American physical chemist Gilbert Lewis (cyanide), English morphological thermodynamics poineer Alan Turing (eating cyanide laced apple), among others, discussed below.

Atomic theory | Founders
Two of the four originators atomic theory, a cousin science to thermodynamics, namely Democritus and Lucretius, both of who were of the view that death was simply a dissolution of the atoms, supposedly committed suicide:

“Democritus, when at ripe old age warned him that mind and memory were failing, went freely to place his person in death’s path. Epicurus himself died when life’s light ran out, he who in mind surpassed all men—eclipsed them all, as the sun hung high in heaven, the stars.”
— Lucretius (55BC), On the Nature of Things (pg. 81; 3:1039-44)

“Lucretius, as reported by Jerome [c.410BC], was driven mad by a ‘love potion’, and in the intervals of his insanity, wrote ‘books’ that were later edited by Cicero, and he eventually committed suicide.”
— Frank Copley (1977), “Introduction” to On the Nature of Things

The later defense of atomic theory by Ludwig Boltzmann, against the views of Ernst Mach, Wilhelm Ostwald, and others, who believed that atoms did not exist, later worked as a tension that in 1906 drove Boltzmann (age 44), in turn, to the noose (as discussed below).

Burton

In 1621, Robert Burton, in his The Anatomy of Melancholy, impressively employed electricity (amber), magnetism (loadstone), and heat (warmth) logic to explain love and beauty; the following is a noted excerpt: [1]

“As amber attracts a straw, so does beauty admiration, which only lasts while the warmth continues. But virtue, wisdom, goodness, and real worth, like the loadstone, never lose their power.”

This, as cited by Henry Finck (1887), is a classic proto physical science based love theory, classified along with: Empedocles, Goethe, Ludwig Buchner, Schopenhauer, in the early history of human chemical thermodynamics. Here, of note, we recall the later work of James Froude (first English translator of Goethe's Elective Affinities), on magnetism, heat, and love. In 1640, Burton hung himself in a room at Christ Church, Oxford. This room was later occupied by a young Robert Hooke, as a college student, as talked about by Hooke, an EPD genius, whose father had also committed suicide.


In 1773, German polyintellect Johann Goethe, the initiator of human chemical thermodynamics and founder of human chemistry, via his 1796 affinity-based "human chemical theory", wrote his first novel, the 1773 Werther, on the topic of suicide resulting from a love triangle.

In 1773, German polyintellect Johann Goethe, the initiator of human chemical thermodynamics and founder of human chemistry, via his 1796 affinity-based "human chemical theory", wrote his first novel, the 1773 Werther, on the topic of suicide resulting from a love triangle.

Goethe
In 1773, German polyintellect Johann Goethe, the founder of human chemistry, via his pioneering work on human chemical reaction theory (see also: Henry Adams, Otto Weininger, below), and precursory founder of “human chemical thermodynamics”, via his work on chemical affinities applied to humans, the precursor to free energies (see also: Fritz Haber, Gilbert Lewis, and Percy Bridgman, below), as quantified by the Goethe-Helmholtz equation (shown below), at the age of 24, penned his first work themed on suicide, which caused him to become instantly world famous.

Specifically, in six weeks of intensive writing during January–March 1774, following the suicide of his close associate [add name], Goethe pens his great tale Werther (famously read by Napoleon six times during battle)—or The Sorrows of Young Werther in full—about an unstable love triangle — Lotte (engaged via arrangement to Albert), Albert (an older wealthier man), and Werther (in love with Lotte) — according to which Werther had come to the realization that he had to die in order to resolve the situation. Unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider committing murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a farewell letter to be found after his suicide, he writes to Albert asking for his two pistols, under a pretence that he is going "on a journey". Lotte receives the request with great emotion and sends the pistols. Werther then shoots himself in the head, but does not expire until 12 hours after he has shot himself.

Although the story Werther is fiction, albeit based an associate of Goethe (add), who did die by his own hand, mixed win with thoughts on the the love triangle of Charlotte Buff a youthful acquaintance of Goethe, who he fell in love with, who rejected him, owing supposedly to financial issues, instead married Johann Christian Kestner, a diplomat and art collector, Goethe, himself does not die (dereact) by his own hand—his last and final words at the age of 82 being "more light"; but, the dangerous theory he initiates, that human passions can be quantified, measured, and predetermined, as the chemist measures heats of reaction, as explained in his 1809 Elective Affinities, via hidden layers of code, his so-called "most dangerous book", opened a pandora's box of aftermath, so to speak, one striking example being Otto Weininger (below), who in 1903, less than four months after boasting about being the first to pick up Goethe's unfinished work on human chemistry, shoots himself in the heart, or Henry Adams, the first to pick up Goethe's unfinished work on human chemistry, in the post-modern chemical thermodynamic era, finds that his wife has swallowed potassium cyanide KCN less than eight months after he defined the subject Goethe initiated as the study of the “attraction and repulsion of human molecules”; a blaze that has not yet reached its peak.


A rendition (Ѻ) of the 18 Jul 1822 cremation of Percy Shelly, by Louis Fournier (1899), after Shelley’s body had washed ashore, six days earlier (Jul 12), on a beach near Viareggio; reported by some as boating accident during storm and as suicide by others.

Percy Shelly cremation (Louis Edouard Fournier, 1899) (labeled)

A rendition (Ѻ) of the 18 Jul 1822 cremation of Percy Shelly, by Louis Fournier (1899), after Shelley’s body had washed ashore, six days earlier (Jul 12), on a beach near Viareggio; reported by some as boating accident during storm and as suicide by others.

Shelley
In 1822, Percy Shelley, age 29, following a hardened social existence, after infamously getting expelled from Oxford ten years earlier (age 19), for his Necessity of Atheism, then married Mary Shelley, famed Frankenstein author, in the "Church of Elective Affinities", tried to obtain a lethal dose of prussic acid (Ѻ), aka hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and then on Jul 8, a month shy of his 30th birthday, was reported to have “mysteriously” drowned (in his own rowboat); his obituary read as follows:

“Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned: now he knows whether there is a god or no.”
— Author (1822), “Shelley Obituary” (Ѻ), London Troy newspaper

Shelley’s reaction end has been suggested, e.g. Richard Holmes (2004) (Ѻ), Lynn Shepherd (2013) (Ѻ), among others, to have been suicide. Shelley, like Goethe, was a "human elective affinity" theorists, i.e. the forerunner to the modern variant of "human free energy" theorist, the core subject of human chemical thermodynamics.

Mayer
In 1840, German physician and physicist Robert Mayer, one of the first to state the first law of thermodynamics, while working as a ship’s doctor on a Dutch vessel which visited the East Indies, had conceived of the mechanical equivalent of heat by study of the color of the blood of his crewmates and the temperature difference between the tropics and Europe. In 1842, after returning to Germany, he began to publish his scientific theories on in obscure journals, such as Annals of Chemistry and Pharmacy, but his theories went largely unnoticed as these journals were not read by physicists. Those who did notice, however, ridiculed his work, as it was not based on experimental data. [10]

During this period, one of his sons and two of his daughters fell ill and died before the age of three. He also discovered that English physicist James Joule had claimed discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat, while his theory was still unknown. In 1850, during an attack of insomnia, Mayer jumped out of a third-story window and fell almost thirty feet to the ground and broke both his legs. It is said that in 1851, he was placed in an asylum, but later released. [13]

He survived, but soon was forced to begin spending long series of voluntary and involuntary hospitalizations and even occasional restraint by strait-jacket. [1] Curiously, in Poggendorf’s authoritative 1863 Dictionary of the History of Science it was incorrectly claimed that Mayer had already died—in an insane asylum (see: insanity and genius).


A depiction of the so-called "Henry Adams love triangle" (see: love thought experiment), in 1885, wherein, seemingly, the introduction of molecule B (Elizabeth Cameron), into the reaction system of molecule C (Henry Adams), seems to have worked to precipitate the dissolution or detachment of molecule A (Clover Adams) from the AC marriage bond (Henry-Clover relationship), via the action of suicide, on 6 Dec 1885, via ingestion of potassium cyanide KCN. [15]

A depiction of the so-called "Henry Adams love triangle" (see: love thought experiment), in 1885, wherein, seemingly, the introduction of molecule B (Elizabeth Cameron), into the reaction system of molecule C (Henry Adams), seems to have worked to precipitate the dissolution or detachment of molecule A (Clover Adams) from the AC marriage bond (Henry-Clover relationship), via the action of suicide, on 6 Dec 1885, via ingestion of potassium cyanide KCN. [15]

Adams | Molecular love triangle
On 27 Jun 1872, American physical science historian Henry Adams (social Newton #2 behind Goethe) married Marian Hooper (Clover Adams).

In Jan 1881, Henry Adams met the 24-year-old Elizabeth Cameron, for the first time, in the drawing room of the house of John Hay can Clara Hay. On 19 May 1883, when Cameron and her husband (senator J. Donald Cameron), by arranged marriage, departed for Europe, Adams initiated a correspondence with Elizabeth Cameron, expressing unhappiness with her departure and his longing for her return.

On 7 Dec 1884, exactly one year before the suicide of Clover Adams, Henry Adams wrote to Cameron:

“I shall dedicate my next poem to you. I shall have you carved over the arch of my stone doorway. I shall publish your volume of extracts with your portrait on the title page. None of these methods can fully express the extent to which I am yours.”

On 12 Apr 1885, Adams, while on an extended work stay-over in Washington, wrote Clover the following:

“I am not prepared to deny or assert any proposition which concerns myself; but certainly this solitary struggle with platitudinous atoms, called men and women by courtesy, leads me to wish for my wife again. How did I ever hit on the only women in the world who fits my cravings and never sounds hollow anywhere?

Social chemistry—the mutual attraction of equivalent human molecules—is a science yet to be created, for the fact is my daily study and only satisfaction in life.”

This subject "yet to be created", as Adams put it, would be developed in the two centuries to follow (Fairburn, Human Chemistry, 1914; Dreier, We Human Chemicals, 1948; Thims, Human Chemistry, 2007).

It would seem, here, in the above "equivalent" human molecules statement, to be the case, speculatively speaking, that the three human molecules Adams had in mind in this statement, subsequently, would have been himself, his side love affair (or interest) Elizabeth Cameron, and his wife Clover Adams.

On 13 Apr 1885, Clover’s father died, and this was said to have initiated a period of mourning which evolved into mental depression from which she did not recover.

On 4 Dec 1885, two days before her suicide by cyanide (Dec 6), Clover Adams, visited Elizabeth Cameron, who was then three-months pregnant.

On 6 Dec 1885, Clover died by suicide via swallowing potassium cyanide.

On 29 Sep 1908, Adams wrote Cameron the following telling insight about his encounter with the chemical thermodynamics equations of Willard Gibbs:

“I have run my head hard up against a form of mathematics that grinds my brains out. I flounder like a sculpin in the mud. It is called the ‘law of phases’, and was invented at Yale. No one shall persuade me that I am not a phase.”

Here, we see the affinity chemistry belief system (or belief state) to chemical thermodynamics belief system (or belief state) transition occurring, according to which, whereas Goethe believed himself to be some type of animated chemical governed by the forces of chemical affinity, Adams, alternatively albeit equivalently (in science upgrade terms), believed himself to be a both a "molecule" (1885) and "phase" (1908) or state of "equilibrium" defined by the chemical thermodynamics of Willard Gibbs. Adams would go on to pen out his "physicochemical dynamic theory of history" as he called it, at least in outline and in letters of communication, prior to his 1912 debilitating stroke.


Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger shot himself in the heart four months after finishing his Goethe-influenced human chemical theory stylized Sex and Character, in the same room where Ludwig Beethoven died.

Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger shot himself in the heart four months after finishing his Goethe-influenced human chemical theory stylized Sex and Character, in the same room where Ludwig Beethoven died.

Weininger
In 1903, Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger, following unknowingly in the footsteps of Henry Adams (or rather his wife), in respect to elaborating on a type of human chemical thermodynamics, finished his Sex and Character: A Fundamental Investigation, a noted very erudite quote of which is:

“If iron sulphate and caustic potash are brought together, the SO4 ions leave the iron to unite with the potassium. When in nature an adjustment of such differences of potential is about to take place, he who would approve or disapprove of the process form the moral point of view would appear to most to play a ridiculous part.”

in which he claims to be the first to extrapolate upon German polymath Johann Goethe’s 1809 chemical affinity theory of relationships, passions, sex, marriage and divorce: [26]

“I must confess to being proud that this book is the first work to take up [Goethe’s] [human chemical theory] ideas.”

Four months later (in the same hotel room Beethoven died) he shot himself in the heart.

“This book ... is a sensational work, both by reason of its contents and of the tragic fate of its author. Weininger, as is commonly known, shot himself in the autumn of 1903 at the early age of twenty-three, in the house in Vienna where Beethoven had died. . . . But it is the book itself, even more than its author's individuality, which is abnormal. It is nothing less than an attempt to construct a system of sexual characterology on the broadest scientific basis, with all the resources of the most modern philosophy.”

— Author (1907), “Review”, General News Paper (Allgemeine Zeitung) [26]

Specifically, in June 1903, after months of concentrated work, Weininger finished his human chemistry upgrade book Sex and Character: A Fundamental Investigation , an attempt "to place sex relations in a new and decisive light"—namely, it seems, and expansion of Goethe’s human chemical theory applied to feminism and sexual relation issues. The book did not created the expected “stir”, although at one point it was attacked by German neurologist and Goethe-Schopenhauer-Nietzsche scholar Paul Mobius who accused him of plagiarism. Deeply disappointed, and seemingly depressed, Weininger left for Italy. Back in Vienna he spent his last five days with his parents. On October 3, he took a room in the house in Schwarzspanierstraße 15 where Ludwig van Beethoven died. He told the landlady that he was not to be disturbed before morning since he planned to work and then to go to bed late. This night he wrote two letters, one addressed to his father, the other one to his brother Richard, telling them that he was going to shoot himself. On October 4, Weininger was found mortally wounded, having shot himself through the heart. He died in Wiener Allgemeines Krankenhaus at half past ten that morning. Weininger was buried in the Matzleinsdorf Protestant Cemetery in Vienna. The epitaph by his father translates:

“This stone closes the resting place of a youth whose spirit never found rest on earth. And when he had made known the revelations of his spirit and of his soul, he could no longer bear to be among the living. He sought out the death precinct of one of the greatest in Vienna's Schwarzspanier house, and there destroyed his bodily existence.”

(add)


In 1906, Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, central founder of statistical mechanics, at the age of 62, hung himself, while on vacation with his wife and daughter, after decades of attack on his theory of the statistical behavior of molecules; a theory vindicated to the greatest extent years after his death.

In 1906, Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, central founder of statistical mechanics, at the age of 62, hung himself, while on vacation with his wife and daughter, after decades of attack on his theory of the statistical behavior of molecules; a theory vindicated to the greatest extent years after his death.

Boltzmann
In 1895, Boltzmann, in his now-famous Lectures on Gas Theory, was discussing the probability of suicide in a given population in comparison to the improbability of unlikely events occurring, such as one mole of gas finding itself in one half of a container: [11]

“One may recognize that this is practically equivalent to never, if one recalls that in this length of time, according to the laws of probability, there will have been many years in which every inhabitant of a large country committed suicide, purely by accident, on the same day, or every building burned down at the same time—yet the insurance companies get along quite well by ignoring the possibility of such events.”

Boltzmann's ideas in these years were not accepted by many scientists. In 1895, at a scientific meeting in Lübeck, Wilhelm Ostwald presented a paper in which he stated:

“The actual irreversibility of natural phenomena thus proves the existence of processes that cannot be described by mechanical equations, and with this the verdict on scientific materialism is settled.”

Arnold Sommerfeld, who was at the meeting, described the resulting battle between Ostwald and Boltzmann, as follows:

“Boltzmann was seconded by Felix Klein. The battle between Boltzmann and Ostwald resembled the battle of the bull with the supple fighter. However, this time the bull was victorious. The arguments of Boltzmann carried the day. We, the young mathematicians of that time, were all on the side of Boltzmann.”

Ostwald led the opposition to Boltzmann's ideas which were opposed by many European scientists, they misunderstood them, not fully grasping the statistical nature of his reasoning. However some, including Mach, thought the arguments were too violent. [24]

On Aug 3, 1897, Boltzmann prefaced his lecture notes on mechanics with the following motto: [25]

“But forward what is true; so write that it is clear, and fight for it to the end!”

In 1898, the resolve of Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, one the founders of statistical thermodynamics, in his work, was beginning to weaken, following prolonged onslaught from Ernst Mach and others from the energetics school who denied the existence of atoms, the linchpin of Boltzmann's gas theory; the following statement, according to Jing Chen (Ѻ), among others, made that year is said to be parlay into his eventual end: [19]

“I am conscious of being only one individual struggling weakly against the current of time. But it still remains in my power to make a contribution in such a way that, when the theory of gases is again revived, not too much will have to be rediscovered.”

In 1900, because of his dislike of working with Mach, Boltzmann moved to Leipzig but here he became a colleague of his strongest scientific opponent Wilhelm Ostwald. Despite their scientific differences Boltzmann and Ostwald were on good personal terms. Despite this, depressed by scientific arguments with Ostwald, from the 1895 Leipzig meeting, which are described below Boltzmann unsuccessfully attempted suicide during his time in Leipzig. [24]

In 1905, Boltzmann took a trip from Vienna to California to lecture on thermodynamics during the summer session at the University of California, Berkeley (the same school where Gilbert Lewis would later commit suicide). By this time in his life he was plagued by a variety of illnesses: deteriorating eyesight, asthma attacks, angina, and migraines. Worse, he suffered from deep depressions that periodically carried him off into his own private hell, and had led to a suicide attempt a few years earlier. [1] Not long before the California trip, Boltzmann’s wife, Henriette, had lamented to their daughter: “Father gets worse every day. I have lost my confidence in the future”.

The central difficulty facing Boltzmann was his strong belief in the reality of atoms and the opposition to this belief professed by his closest friends and many of his scientific peers. Yet, in spite of universal acceptance of his statistical thermodynamics theories of gas interactions, during his travel to Berkeley he was at the height of his fame. Students flocked to his lectures, and colleagues throughout the world sought his counsel. His identification of entropy with probability was recognized as a masterpiece of theoretical physics. On his sixtieth birthday, during the previous year, a collection of his papers had been published in his honor, with contributions from 117 scientists and he had received countless medals and honorary doctorates. But he was not a happy man. [1]


The title page to John Blackmore’s 1990 chapter “Final Months & Aftermath” on Ludwig Boltzmann’s final year, dereacting on 5 Sep 1906 via hanging himself. [22]

The title page to John Blackmore’s 1990 chapter “Final Months & Aftermath” on Ludwig Boltzmann’s final year, dereacting on 5 Sep 1906 via hanging himself. [22]

On Thur, Sep 6, 1906, at the Hotel Ples – which is now part of the international United World College of Adriatic (Collegio del Mondo Unito dell’ Adriatico) – while his wife Henriette Boltzmann and daughter Elsa Boltzmann (1891-1965) were out swimming, Boltzmann hung himself with a short cord from the crossbar of a window casement of the hotel room. His daughter was the first to discover the suicide. He left no suicide note. [25]

Thermodynamics historian Stephen Brush comments on Boltzmann’s ironic death that: [12]

“This suicide must be ranked as one of the great tragedies in the history of science, made all the more ironic by the fact that the scientific world made a complete turnabout in the next few years and accepted the existence of atoms, following Perrin’s experiments on Brownian motion.”

In other words, in 1909, only three years after Boltzmann hung himself for having the scientific community, namely: Ernst Mach, Gustav Jaumann, Ernst Zermelo, and Wilhelm Ostwald, reject his belief of the existence of atoms and his interpretation of thermodynamics as an atomic and molecular phenomenon, French chemist Jean Perrin proved that atoms exist, experimentally, by calculating and determined the number of atoms in one mole of substance.


Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest, Boltzmann's famous student, shot himself in 1933 owing to, as his associate Albert Einstein summarized, "work overload and depression".

Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest, Boltzmann's famous student, shot himself in 1933 owing to, as his associate Albert Einstein summarized, "work overload and depression".

Ehrenfest
In 1933, Boltzmann's noted student Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest, said, according to his associate Albert Einstein, to have been depressed from an overloaded workload, made arrangements for the care of his other three children, then on September 25 first shot his Down syndrome son Wassik, then shot himself.

A good deal of correspondence, in 1932, preceded Ehrenfest’s suicide, among them communications of despair with Einstein, about obtaining a less-demanding post in America, about his growing inability to understand quantum mechanics, and something about his failure to understand what he was copying from a book by Hermann Weyl, among other issues. (Ѻ)

William James
In psychological thermodynamics, American psychologist William James is noted for his 1906 reserve energy theory of mental and physical activity, which argued that reserve reservoirs of energy lay latent in the human only waiting to be tapped. In circa 1908, however, James’ theory came into contact with the repercussion of the second law of thermodynamics through a reading of his friend American historian Henry Adams’ manuscript A Letter to American Teachers of History, in which it was argued that human history is subject to degradations of energy. In response, James’ sent a letter of criticism and rebuttal to Adams arguing against Adams’ theory; followed by two later postcards in the same effort. James, who in his early adulthood had suffered from periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end, died on August 26, 1909, exactly two months after sending his last postcard to Adams. Robert Richardson, in his 2007 biography on James, comments on this last stand effort before his death: [6]

“What can one say about the philosophical bravado, the cosmic effrontery, the sheer panache of this ailing philosopher with one foot in the grave [see also: Thomas Jefferson, 1819] talking down the second law of thermodynamics? It is a scene fit to set alongside the death of Socrates.”

In short, Adam's Letter to American Teachers of History essentially laid question to James' theory of innate reserve energies, and this may have acted as his tipping point.


Clara Haber (1870-1915), shown (left), who married to Fritz Haber in 1901, and who committed suicide, on 1-2 May 1915, by shooting herself in the heart, after, supposedly, finding that her husband was having an affair with Charlotte Nathan (1889-1976), whom and Fritz married two years later; their 25 Aug 1917 wedding photo shown (right).

Clara Haber (1870-1915), shown (left), who married to Fritz Haber in 1901, and who committed suicide, on 1-2 May 1915, by shooting herself in the heart, after, supposedly, finding that her husband was having an affair with Charlotte Nathan (1889-1976), whom and Fritz married two years later; their 25 Aug 1917 wedding photo shown (right).

Haber family
On 1-2 May 1915, German physical chemist and gas reaction thermodynamics pioneer Fritz Haber's wife Clara Haber (Clara Immerwahr), shot herself in the heart with her husband's pistol. Official reports were that she did so over objections to her husband’s involvement in chemical gas warfare used against the French and Russians.

Alternatively, Hermann Lutke, a mechanic in Haber's institute, reported (1958), in a series of letters to a man hoping to write a biography on Haber, that late in the evening of May 1, Clara encountered her husband with Charlotte Nathan, a young business woman who ran Haber’s downtown club, in an “embarrassing situation”, realizing that the two were having an affair. [5] Haber, after his wife’s suicide, married Nathan in 1917, after which the couple had two children.

In 1946, their son Hermann took his own life and, shortly thereafter, Hermann’s oldest daughter did the same. [5]

Freud | Physician-assisted suicide
On 22 Sep 1939, Sigmund Freud, aged 83, central founder of the thermodynamics based psychodynamics (see: A Project for Scientific Psychology), who for the last 20 years of his existence had developed mouth cancer, from his heavy cigar smoking, during which he had undergone 23 operations, eventually forced to wear a prosthesis, exhausted, persuaded his physician, Max Schur, to give him enough morphine to bring about an end to his reaction existence. Schur, conducive to these wishes, gave Freud three 2-3 milligram does of Morphine, over the course of 12-hours, Freud went into a coma, and died (dereacted) at 3AM 23 Sep 1939. [27]

Lewis
In 1946, it was superficially reported that American physical chemist Gilbert Lewis, one of the central founders of modern chemical thermodynamics, at the age of 70, had died of a heart attack while working in his laboratory. He had been working on an experiment with liquid hydrogen cyanide, and deadly fumes from a "broken line", which seems to be a misrepresentation of facts (see Jolly report below), were leaking into the laboratory when a graduate student found the professor's lifeless body under a workbench. The coroner said Lewis died of coronary artery disease; however, some believe that the death may have been a suicide. UC Berkeley professor Emeritus William Jolly, who reported the various views on Lewis' death in his 1987 history of the University of California, Berkeley’s College of Chemistry, From Retorts to Lasers, said one higher-up in the department believed the suicide theory; one excerpt of which is as follows: [21]

“In a retrospective symposium honoring G.N. Lewis, Michale Kasha attempted to quash the suggestion that Lewis committed suicide, but his arguments were not compelling.”


An excerpt from American chemist Edward Lewis’ 1998 biography on how Gilbert Lewis had done work meritable to the equivalent of three Nobel Prizes, yet at the age of 70, despite 35 nominations, had puzzlingly not yet won? [20]

An excerpt from American chemist Edward Lewis’ 1998 biography on how Gilbert Lewis had done work meritable to the equivalent of three Nobel Prizes, yet at the age of 70, despite 35 nominations, had puzzlingly not yet won? [20]

The common argument or reasoning given to Lewis' peculiar reaction end (death), was depression following a lunch with American physical chemist Irving Langmuir. Langmuir and Lewis had had a long rivalry, dating back to Langmuir's extensions of Lewis' theories on the chemical bond, and Langmuir had been awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his theories of surface chemistry, while Lewis had not received the Nobel Prize despite 35 nominations.

On the day of Lewis' death, Langmuir and Lewis met for lunch at the University of California, Berkeley—a meeting that was recalled by Lewis' last research associate, Michael Kasha, only years later. [2] It was reported by associates that Lewis came back from the meeting in a dark mood. He reportedly sat down for a morose game of bridge with some colleagues, and then went back to work in his lab. An hour later, Lewis was dead. Langmuir's papers at the Library of Congress confirm that he was on the University of California, Berkeley campus that day. Langmuir had gone to the University of California, Berkeley to receive an honorary degree.


American chemistry historian Patrick Coffey's 2008 Cathedrals of Science, in which he devotes an end chapter to Gilbert Lewis' mysterious death, in 1946 by via hydrogen cyanide (HCN), drawn to understand the nature of the "haunted eyes" looking out from one of Lewis' last photos (on his 70th birthday). [15]

American chemistry historian Patrick Coffey's 2008 Cathedrals of Science, in which he devotes an end chapter to Gilbert Lewis' mysterious death, in 1946 by via hydrogen cyanide (HCN), drawn to understand the nature of the "haunted eyes" looking out from one of Lewis' last photos (on his 70th birthday). [15]

In 2006, American a self-employed business-consulting chemist Patrick Coffey, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Office for the History of Science and Technology, gave talk at Berkeley’s Chemistry College, packing the house, on his recent historical investigations into Lewis’ mysterious end, for a chapter he was writing devoted to the subject, as found in his Cathedrals of Science (2008). [15] As SFGate.com reporter Rich VelVecchio, in his “What Killed Famed Cal Chemist?” interview article, summarizes: [16]

“The focus of Coffey's current fascination is a character whose haunted eyes look out from a portrait taken shortly before he unexpectedly died under cloudy circumstances 60 years ago.”

Coffey reports William Jolly, in his history of the Berkeley chemistry department, as having writing the following: [15]

“One of Lewis’s bridge-playing cronies, Gerald Marsh, said that on the afternoon of March 23, 1946, Lewis appeared to be morose while playing cards at the Faculty Club. He then went to his laboratory in Gilman Hall, where he was later found dead near a broken ampoule of hydrogen cyanide.”

In 1998, American chemist and Gilbert Lewis biographer Edward Lewis, in his A Biography of Distinguished Scientist Gilbert Newton Lewis, give his opinion on the matter as follows: [20]

“The suggestion of suicide by cyanide in Jolly’s book—although originated earlier by [Joel] Hildebrand and [Kenneth] Pitzer, both of whom knew him well—is to me out of character, and not supported by the autopsy.”

There is, to note, a statistical pattern which indicates that Nobel Prize winners live (react) longer than Nobel Prize losers (or non-winners); this may, indeed, have been a factor with Lewis, one of the greatest chemists ever:

“The fact that Lewis never was awarded the Nobel Prize for his breathtaking work is one of the stains in the history of this prize. Yet the very same Lewis was the direct mentor of more Nobel Prize winners in chemistry than any Nobel Prize winner in any category.”
— Adriaan de Lange (1998), “On Entropy” [18]

The general supposition offered here is that Lewis suffered from the so-called genius "catch up effect"; namely, in 1946, the world had not yet caught up to what Lewis had done. It would not be, in fact, into the early 21st century, that the immense genius of Lewis would be recognized, the foremost of which was his work on the free energies of chemical substances, which is something still not yet absorbed into the minds of the physical science elites at the forefront of knowledge. In short, the bigger the genius one becomes, the more one's work is likely to be recognized or rather absorbed posthumously—the greater the distance in time between point of inception and point of absorption, the greater the genius.


British polymath Alan Turing met his end via cyanide-laced apple in 1954 for so-called "homosexual" crimes committed two years prior while doing pioneering work on the in chemical thermodynamics of morphology.

Turning
In 1952, British polymath, mathematician, engineer, computer scientist, code breaker, and chemist Alan Turing, publishing his chemical thermodynamics based based “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis”, wherein he aimed to explain morphological development of organisms, via a possible mechanism by which the genes of a zygote or embryo may determine the anatomical structure of resulting organisms, via recourse to equilibrium reaction theory and free energy determinates. That same year he was convicted of ‘Acts of Gross Indecency’, after admitting a sexual relationship with another man. He was given a choice between 18 months prison time (which considering his crime, was not exactly wise), or chemical castration, which included side effects such as breast enlargement. He chose the latter.

On the 7 Jun 1954, unable to endure the humiliation and pain of his punishment, Turing took his own life by eating an apple laced with cyanide:

“Turing was found by his cleaner when she came in on 8 June 1954. He had died the day before of cyanide poisoning, a half-eaten apple beside his bed. His mother believed he had accidentally ingested cyanide from his fingers after an amateur chemistry experiment, but it is more credible that he had successfully contrived his death to allow her alone to believe this. The coroner's verdict was suicide.”
— Andrew Hodges (1995), Turing.org.uk (Ѻ)

Despite this, it would take another 13-years for homosexuality to be decriminalized in the Britain. [14] It is conjectured, by Libb Thims (2016), among others, e.g. David Quammen (2001), as shown below, that Turing' use of the apple was a symbolic message to humankind:

“Still another irony, conscious on his part, appeared in his choice of a suicide method. From the evidence found in his house, it seems that he soaked half an apple in a solution of potassium cyanide. He lay calmly on his bed. He ate a few bites of the apple and died. What was he trying to say about the tree of knowledge of good and evil?”
— David Quammen (2001), The Boilerplate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder (pg. 148)

In short, knowing that Turing's forced demise resulted from the society-deemed legally-enforced view that homosexuality was a "wrong" behavior, i.e. an unnatural act, in the Biblical-minded eyes of many, that Turing's use of the "apple" to meet his reaction end may have been symbolic of message for humankind to eat more from the forbidden tree of knowledge so that the future might have a better foundational handle on the fundamental difference between "right" behavior as compared to "wrong" behavior.


In 1959, American "emotional thermodynamics" founder Helen Dunbar, age 57, was found "floating face down" in her swimming pool; her dereaction reported as suicide, following a period, in her last years, of increased "stress handled with alcohol".

Dead women floating in pool (Helen Dunbar) labeled

In 1959, American "emotional thermodynamics" founder Helen Dunbar, age 57, was found "floating face down" in her swimming pool; her dereaction reported as suicide, following a period, in her last years, of increased "stress handled with alcohol".

Dunbar
In 1959, American polymath Helen Dunbar, the founder of the "emotional thermodynamics", was found face down in her pool, after about a decade of increased social resistance (mostly of the religious type) to her Freud "energy psychology" based theories and other issues. Having endured a certain level of emotional abuse growing up, because of her 4’11’’ height, dubbed “Little Dunbar” in youth and “Pocket Minerva” at medical school, diagnosed with pseudo infantile paralysis, a "rachitic, weakening disease", and in adolescence with a "metabolic disturbance" (Powell, 1974); others have labeled her condition as “failure to thrive” (Hart, 1996). Her last reaction state is reported by Hendriak Kemp as follows: [23]

“Dunbar's last years were difficult, and she sometimes handled the stress with alcohol. Soule's views on social medicine created problems for her with the New York Academy of Medicine; a secretary committed suicide in 1948, a patient (Raymond Roscoe Squier) in 1951; Dunbar was in a near-fatal auto accident 1954; she had to defend herself against a senseless and sensational lawsuit. On 21 August 1959 Dunbar was "found floating face down in her swimming pool" (Powell, 1974, p. 275). The New York Times and Herald-Tribune reported her death as a suicide; the coroner ruled it simply death by drowning.”

Dunbar's stress increase, no doubt, was triggered into a higher level, when in 1942, she was forced to departure from her role as medial director of the Council Council for Clinical Training of Theological Students, which she began in 1930, for reasons was due in part to her Freudian and Reichian ideas. [2]


In 1961, American physicist Percy Bridgman, eponym of Bridgman formulas, the systematic collection and derivation of the main equations in thermodynamics, at the age of 79, shot himself in the head after living with megastatic cancer form some time.

In 1961, American physicist Percy Bridgman, eponym of Bridgman formulas, the systematic collection and derivation of the main equations in thermodynamics, at the age of 79, shot himself in the head after living with megastatic cancer form some time.

Bridgman
In 1961, American physicist Percy Bridgman, noted for his high pressure physics work, thermodynamics formula derivation system, aka the Bridgman formulas (720 equations, organized into 10 groups), and the so-called Bridgman paradox about the supposed inability to calculated state functions of living things (e.g. people), committed suicide by gunshot after living with metastatic cancer for some time. Specifically, in 1961, Bridgman, at the age of 79, shot himself in the head; his suicide note read in part: [7]

“It isn't decent for society to make a man do this thing himself. Probably this is the last day I will be able to do it myself.”

American surgeon, bioethicist, and death-with-dignity advocate Sherwin Nuland (Ѻ), in his How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter, following discussion of Seneca’s views on death, cites Bridgman as the foremost clarion call to reason in respect to the need for death with dignity: [13]

“Against such a standard, the suicide of Percy Bridgman was close to being irreproachable. Bridgman was a Harvard professor whose studies in high-pressure physics won him a Nobel Prize in 1946. At the age of seventy-nine and in the final stages of cancer, be continued to work until he could no longer do so. Living at his summer home in Randolph, New Hampshire, he completed the index to a seven-volume collection of his scientific works, sent it off to the Harvard University Press, and then shot himself on August 20, 1961, leaving a suicide note in which he summed up a controversy that has since embroiled an entire world of medical ethics:

‘It is not decent for society to make a man do this to himself. Probably, this is the last day I will be able to do it myself.’

Opening paragraph to American physicist David Goodstein's 1975 book States of Matter, characterized by some (Ѻ) as “possibly the greatest opening paragraph in a science textbook ever.” [9]
When he died, Bridgman seemed absolutely clear in his mind that he was making the "right" choice. He worked right up to the final day, tied up loose ends, and carried out his plan. I'm not certain how much consideration he gave to consulting others, but his decision had certainly not been kept a secret from friends and colleagues, because there is ample evidence of his having at least informed some of them in advance. He had become so sick that he felt it doubtful that he would much longer be capable of mustering up the strength to carry out his ironclad resolve. In his final message, Bridgman deplored the necessity of performing his deed unaided. A colleague reported a conversation in which Bridgman said:

‘I would like to take advantage of the situation in which I find myself to establish a general principle; namely, that when the ultimate end is as inevitable as it now appears to be the individual has a right to ask his doctor to end it for him.’?

If a single sentence were needed to epitomize the battle in which we are all now joined, you have just read it.”


Opening paragraph to American physicist David Goodstein's 1975 book States of Matter, characterized by some (Ѻ) as “possibly the greatest opening paragraph in a science textbook ever.” [9]

Here we see the precise methodicalness and relentless pristine logic with which Bridgman ran ever moment of his existence, which would seem to capture the mindset of a large percentage of thermodynamicists outlined above, namely a young adult going into an extremely precise systematic way of deriving the main 720-equations of thermodynamics (1914) by taking the first derivatives of the 10 fundamental quantities (see: Bridgman formulas), to his operationalism model of meaning (1926), which asserts that ALL concepts without a operational means of "measurement" are meaningless, his 1941 The Nature of Thermodynamics, the 1946 Bridgman paradox, on the seeming impossibility of calculating the entropy of a living organism (powered CHNOPS+ system), and for his involvement in the Princeton Department of Social Physics.

The high discerning Bridgman suicide note is frequently quoted (Ѻ) in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide legalization arguments who are up against a culture mind-soaked in mythological-based ethics models of death, as Neuland puts it.


A screenshot from a 2014 article(Ѻ) wherein Stephen Hawking, one of the main founders of blackhole thermodynamics, talks about how he tried to commit suicide by “holding his breath” amid or after a pneumonia -induced tracheostomy operation.

A screenshot from a 2014 article(Ѻ) wherein Stephen Hawking, one of the main founders of blackhole thermodynamics, talks about how he tried to commit suicide by “holding his breath” amid or after a pneumonia -induced tracheostomy operation.

Hawking
In 1985, Stephen Hawking, one the founders of black hole thermodynamics, following a complication wherein he caught pneumonia, after which he underwent a tracheostomy operation, during which a tube was inserted into his windpipe through his neck, bypassing his mouth and nose and irreversibly removing his voice, he admitted that he tried to commit suicide:

“I admit that when I had my tracheostomy operation, I briefly tried to commit suicide by not breathing. However, the reflex to breathe was too strong.”

— Stephen Hawking (2014), “Interview” (Ѻ), Independent, Jul 17

(add)

Deleuze
In 1995, Gilles Deleuze, noted from some type of molecular/molar social thermodynamics theory of sorts, faced with growing respiratory problems, stemming tuberculosis and lung removal, wherein simple tasks such as writing required laborious effort, committed suicide by throwing himself from the window of his apartment. (Ѻ)

Fergus
In 2015, Patrick Fergus, noted Atheism Reviews co-host, with human chemical thermodynamics pioneer Libb Thims, shortly before his 30th birthday, similar to atheist Percy Shelley, a co-founder of human affinity chemistry, the forerunner to human chemical thermodynamics, committed suicide, via alcohol and drug overdose, while on vacation in Thailand, after reportedly telling a number of people that he probably wouldn't be coming back.

Other
In the 2008 world government and politics human thermodynamics education lecture notes of American government professor Richard Hughes, he states that a reading of chapter eighteen of Greek-born Belgian physicist Grégoire Nicolis and Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine's, 1977 Self-Organization in Non-Equilibrium Systems, one of the founding books of nonequilbrium thermodynamics, will help one get “through many a rough night avoiding the thoughts of suicide.” [3]



Online PowerPoint lecture notes English professor Brian Cowan's Statistical Mechanics course. (Ѻ)

Online PowerPoint lecture notes English professor Brian Cowan's Statistical Mechanics course. (Ѻ)

Lecture notes
A number of thermodynamics and or statistical thermodynamics writers and professors, on David Goodstein’s 1975 lead, now open to semi-humorous warnings about the dangers of studying statistical mechanics and or thermodynamics, e.g. Y.V.C Rao (Ѻ), Franco Nori (Ѻ), etc.;

“When I was an undergraduate studying physics, my physics supervisor introduced me to thermodynamics by explaining that Ludwig Boltzmann committed suicide in 1906, as did Paul Ehrenfest in 1933. Now it was my turn to study what had driven them both to take their own lives.”
— Peter | telescoper (2009), “The Thermodynamics of Beards” (Ѻ), Jul 14

The following is an opening quote from Benjamin Crowell’s thermodynamic chapter: (Ѻ)

“S = k log W — Inscription on the tomb of Ludwig Boltzmann, 1844-1906. Boltzmann, who originated the microscopic theory of thermodynamics, was driven to suicide by the criticism of his peers, who thought that physical theories shouldn't discuss purely hypothetical objects like atoms.”

Shown adjacent (Ѻ) are English professor Brian Cowan's Statistical Mechanics course PowerPoint lectures. Correctly, to note, William James didn’t commit suicide, and Gilbert Lewis' death (reaction end) date (1946) is off; but, whatever the case, humor it seems wins out in this bullet point stylized case in point.

Films | Cited
The 2018 film The Laws of Thermodynamics, by by Mateo Gil, indirectly cites the above article, when the professor warns his graduate student, at least twice, about how there have been many thermodynamics founders and entire families and children of founders, e.g. Fritz Haber, who have committed suicide.

Quotes | Cited
The following are quotes that cite the above article:

“Historians of science have long made note of the surprisingly high rate of suicide attempts amongst the founders of thermodynamics. On the face of it, it makes a great deal of sense; thermodynamics is a particularly grim branch of physics which (among other, much more useful things) seems to prove the inevitability and irreversibility of death. Indeed, in applying it to the entire universe, Lord Kelvin argued that not only life itself, but all physical processes anywhere would eventually become impossible. I admit that I am sympathetic to this view, and that I can even occasionally make myself dizzy by thinking about it too deeply. And yet, at the same time, coming from my own, individual perspective, I actually often find the idea of entropy to be comforting. The reason is this: it is very easy, as a transgender person, to fall into the trap of thinking of yourself as a defect. This, indeed, is how broad segments of society see us and there is a tendency to internalize this view; that we are nothing more that a sort of blight upon the perfect, Platonic forms of gender; that, indeed, in a perfect world, we would not exist at all. But thermodynamics cuts through this nonsense. It shows that on a macroscopic scale, variation is not only to be expected–but is, indeed, necessary. And further, that this variation is a much more fundamental aspect of nature than all of these illusory, macroscopic-scale forms which are ultimately nothing more than emergent properties of massive numbers of atoms. It becomes apparent that things like gender determination are nothing more than complex sequences of chemical reactions, and that in such complicated reactions, some degree of variation is almost inevitable. I should note that I am not stating this as to make any sort of prescriptive statement; this is merely how I justify my own existence to myself.”
— Jaime (2013), “The Consolation of Thermodynamics” (Ѻ), Jun 21

“Decided to drop my applied thermodynamics class after reading this post.”
— Ara (2018), Tweet (Ѻ), Mar 4

See also
● Christian de Duve | Dereacted (age 95) at the time of his choice via euthanasia, which is legal in Belgium
● Ettore Majorana (disappearance)
● Halbwachs indicator | Suicide rate as gauge of social temperature

References
1. Baeyer, Hans C. (1998). Warmth Disperses and Time Passes – the History of Heat, (pgs. 101, 110-11). New York: Modern Library.
2. Coffey, Patrick. (2008). Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry, (pgs. 195-207, 310-15). Oxford University Press.
3. (a) Richard D. Hughes – California State University, Sacramento.
(b) A Thermodynamic View of Politics (PDF) – by Richard D. Hughes.
4. Smil, Vaclav. (2004). Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of the World Food (pg. 226). MIT Press.
5. Stern, Fritz R., and Stern, Fritz. (2001). Einstein’s German World, (pg. 121). Princeton University Press.
6. Richardson, Robert D. (2007). William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism: a Biography (pgs. 518-19). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
7. Nuland, Sherwin. (1995). How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter (pgs. 152-53). Vintage Press.
8. Marian Hooper Adams – Wikipedia.
9. Goodstein, David. (1975). States of Matter (pg. 1). Dover.
10. Rao, Y.V.C. (2004). An Introduction to Thermodynamics (pg. 98). University Press.


A 2010 thermodynamics humor play on the coincidence of thermodynamics founding and suicide, by Tony Piro. (Ѻ)

A 2010 thermodynamics humor play on the coincidence of thermodynamics founding and suicide, by Tony Piro. (Ѻ)

11. Smith, Eric B. (2005). Basic Chemical Thermodynamics (pg. 32). Imperial Press.
12. Boltzmann, Ludwig. (1895). Lectures on Gas Theory (suicide, pgs. 17, 444). Dover.
13. Weinhold, Frank. (2009). Classical and Geometrical Theory of Chemical and Phase Thermodynamics (pg. 70). Wiley-Interscience.
14. Top 10 Scientists who committed Suicide (2007) – ListVerse.com.
15. Coffey, Patrick. (2008). Cathedrals of Science: the Personalities and Rivalries that Made Modern Science (suicide, 8+ pgs; §: Lewis’s Depression, pgs. 307-310; §:Lewis’s Death, pgs. 310-16) . Oxford University Press.
16. DelVecchio, Rich. (2006). “What Killed Famed Cal Chemist?” / 20th Century pioneer who failed to win Nobel Prize may have Succumbed to a Broken Heart, one Admirer Theorizes” (Ѻ), SFGage.com, Aug 5.
17. Dykstra, Natalie. (2012). Clover Adams: a Gilded and Heartbreaking Life (Ѻ). Publisher.
18. De Lange, A.M. (1998). “Entropy”, Oct 30, Learning-org.com.
19. Isihara, A. (1971). Statistical Physics (pg. 18). Academic Press.
20. (a) Lewis, Edward S. (1998). A Biography of Distinguished Scientist Gilbert Newton Lewis (suicide, pgs. 43, 82; (thermodynamics, 30+ pgs; Nobel prize, pg. #). Edwin Mellen Press.
(b) Edward S. Lewis (faculty) – Rice University.
21. Jolly, William L. (1987). From Retorts to Lasers: the Story of Chemistry at Berkeley (suicide, pg. 76). University of California, Berkeley Press.
22. Blackmore, John. (1990). “Final Months & Aftermath”, in: Ludwig Boltzmann His Later Life and Philosophy, 1900-1906: Book One (§8:205-; Jumann, pg. 211). Springer.
23. Kemp, Hendrika V. (2001). “Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902-1959)” (Ѻ), The Feminist Psychologist, 28(1), Winter.
24. Ludwig Boltzmann – MacHistory.
25. Reiter, Wolfgang L. (2008). “Ludwig Boltzmann: the Restless Prophet”, in: Boltzmann’s Legacy (editors: Gallavott, Giovanni, Reiter, Wolfgang L., and Yngvason, Jakob) (§:243-60; suicide, pg. 258). European Mathematical Society.
26. Weininger, Otto. (1903). Eros and Psyche or Sex and Character: A Fundamental Investigation (Geschlecht und Charakter: Eine prinzipielle Untersuchung) (review, pg. vi; theoretical chemistry, pgs. 40-41; elective affinities, pgs. 40-43, 69, 218). Vienna: Braumüller & Co, 1906.
27. (a) Haught, James A. (1996). 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt (pg. 212). Prometheus.
(a) Unwerth, Matthew. (2006). Freud’s requiem: Mourning, Memory, and the Invisible History of a Summer Walk (pg. 189). Blooomsbury.

External links
● Lisa. (2011). “Science Macabre” (Italian → English), Blog, Jun 04.