Printer Friendly
The Free Dictionary
990,296,514 visitors served.
?
Dictionary/
thesaurus
Medical
dictionary
Legal
dictionary
Financial
dictionary
Acronyms
 
Idioms
Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
encyclopedia
?

Fechner, Gustav Theodor

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Wikipedia 0.09 sec.
Fechner, Gustav Theodor (gs`täf tā`ōdōr fĕkh`nər), 1801–87, German philosopher and physicist, founder of psychophysics, educated at Dresden and Leipzig. He became professor of physics at Leipzig in 1834 but was forced by ill health to leave in 1839. Thereafter he devoted himself largely to the study of the relationship between body and mind, although under the name "Dr. Mises" he also wrote humorous satire. In philosophy he was an animist, maintaining that life is manifest in all objects of the universe. His greatest achievement was in the investigation of exact relationships in psychology and aesthetics. He formulated the rule known as Fechner's, or Weber's, law, that, within limits, the intensity of a sensation increases as the logarithm of the stimulus. Two of Fechner's most important works were Zendavesta (1851) and Elementen der Psychophysik (1860).

Fechner, Gustav Theodor

(born April 19, 1801, Gross Särchen, near Muskau, Lusatia—died Nov. 18, 1887, Leipzig, Ger.) German physicist and philosopher who founded the science of psychophysics. He taught at the University of Leipzig (1834–40) but left because of ill health. He developed experimental procedures, still useful in experimental psychology, for measuring sensations in relation to the physical magnitude of stimuli, establishing that, as physical stimulation increases logarithmically, sensation increases arithmetically. Most important, he devised an equation to express Weber's law. His principal scientific work was Elements of Psychophysics (1860).


?Page tools
Printer friendly
Cite / link
Email
Feedback
? Mentioned in
 
Encyclopedia browser? ? Full browser
 
 
Encyclopedia
?

Disclaimer | Privacy policy | Feedback | Copyright © 2008 Farlex, Inc.
All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. Terms of Use.