// minds behind maths

Germain Hess

1802–1850 · Thermochemistry

Germain Hess was a Swiss-born Russian chemist and physician whose studies of heat in chemical reactions founded thermochemistry. In 1840 he announced Hess's law of constant heat summation: the total enthalpy change of a reaction is the same regardless of the number of steps taken to get from reactants to products, because enthalpy is a state function. This lets chemists calculate heats of reaction that are hard to measure directly by adding up the steps of an alternative pathway. His work helped pave the way for the law of conservation of energy.

Source: Wikipedia — Hess's law

Formulas that trace back to Germain Hess