Mayer, Julius Robert von, German physicist, born in Heilbronn; made a special study of the phenomena of heat, established the numerical relation between heat and work, and propounded the theory of the production and maintenance of the sun's temperature; he had a controversy as to the priority of his discoveries with Joule, who claimed to have anticipated them (1814‒1878).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
May, Sir Thomas Erskine * Mayhew, Henry