Arthur König
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Arthur Peter König (1856 – 1901) is a
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
physicist specialized in
optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...
. In 1886, he published an empirical determination of the spectral sensitivity of the human rod and
cone In geometry, a cone is a three-dimensional figure that tapers smoothly from a flat base (typically a circle) to a point not contained in the base, called the '' apex'' or '' vertex''. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines ...
sensors with Conrad Dietrici.


Biography

Born with congenital
kyphosis Kyphosis () is an abnormally excessive convex curvature of the Spinal column, spine as it occurs in the Thoracic spine, thoracic and sacrum, sacral regions. Abnormal inward concave ''lordotic'' curving of the Cervical spine, cervical and Lumba ...
, he devoted his short life to physiological optics. he studied in
Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...
and
Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...
, later moved to
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
in the fall of 1879 where he studied under
Hermann von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (; ; 31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894; "von" since 1883) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The ...
, whose assistant he became in 1882. After obtaining a doctoral degree in 1882, he qualified for a professorial position in 1884. In 1890, he became director of the physical department of the Physiological Institute of the
University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...
. In the same year he married Laura Köttgen with whom he had a son,
Arthur Arthur is a masculine given name of uncertain etymology. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur. In Spanish and Ital ...
, who became an
astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...
. Circulatory problems caused by his kyphosis resulted in his premature death in 1901.Source of biographical information: M. Richter, Arthur König zum Gedächtnis, Die Farbe 5 (1956) No.1/2, 1–6.


Career

Originally working in physics, he began in 1883 to concentrate on physiological optics where he published over thirty papers, some of seminal importance. Among these are the 1886 paper (together with Conrad Dietrici) ''Fundamental sensations and their sensitivity in the spectrum'', an empirical determination of what in fact is the spectral sensitivity of the human rod and
cone In geometry, a cone is a three-dimensional figure that tapers smoothly from a flat base (typically a circle) to a point not contained in the base, called the '' apex'' or '' vertex''. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines ...
sensors of vision.A. König, Die Grundempfindungen und ihre Intensitäts-Vertheilung im Spectrum, Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 29 July 1886, 805–829. Earlier attempts at such measurements, but based on much simpler technology, had been made in 1860 by the English physicist
James Clerk Maxwell James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish physicist and mathematician who was responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism an ...
(1831–1879). Using newly developed spectrophotometric equipment and modifications of the experimental procedure König and Dieterici published a more detailed paper in 1892, determining the "fundamental sensations" not only of subjects with normal color vision ( trichromats) but also of dichromats and monochromats.A. König, Die Grundempfindungen in normalen und anomalen Farbsystemen und ihre Intensitätsvertheilung im Spectrum, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 4 (1892) 241–347. With these measurements König provided evidence for the conjecture that the most common form of
color blindness Color blindness, color vision deficiency (CVD) or color deficiency is the decreased ability to color vision, see color or differences in color. The severity of color blindness ranges from mostly unnoticeable to full absence of color percept ...
,
dichromacy Dichromacy (from Greek ''di'', meaning "two" and ''chromo'', meaning "color") is the state of having two types of functioning photoreceptors, called cone cells, in the eyes. Organisms with dichromacy are called dichromats. Dichromats requir ...
, is due to the absence of one cone type in the eye. Averaged König functions were widely used in psychophysical color stimulus calculations until new data based on a slightly different method were determined by John Guild and William David Wright in 1920s, resulting in the recommendations of standard observer data by the
International Commission on Illumination The International Commission on Illumination (usually abbreviated CIE for its French name Commission internationale de l'éclairage) is the international authority on light, illumination, colour, and colour spaces. It was established in 1913 a ...
(CIE,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
:Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage) in 1931. Other important investigations involve the sensitivity of the normal eye for differences in wavelength of light, dependence of the Newton/Grassmann laws of color mixture on light intensity, validity of Fechner's law at different light intensities, brightness of spectral hues at different light intensities, and the similarity between the perceptual sensitivity of the rod cells and the absorption spectrum of the rod photopigment,
rhodopsin Rhodopsin, also known as visual purple, is a protein encoded by the ''RHO'' gene and a G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR). It is a light-sensitive receptor protein that triggers visual phototransduction in rod cells. Rhodopsin mediates dim ...
. König was an active editor. In 1889 he became the sole editor of
Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft The German Physical Society (German: , DPG) is the oldest organisation of physicists. As of 2022, the DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 52,220, making it one of the largest national physics societies in the world. The DPG's membership peaked ...
. From 1891 on, together with the psychologist H. Ebbinghaus, he edited the journal Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane. After
Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (; ; 31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894; "von" since 1883) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The ...
's death in 1894, König took on the task of completing preparations for the second edition of the former's Treatise on physiological optics (1896,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
:Handbuch der physiologischen Optik) to which he added a bibliography of vision consisting of nearly 8,000 titles. König's 32 papers on physiological optics were published posthumously in book form in 1903.


Publications

* Vorlesungen Über Die Mathematischen Principien Der Akustik (1898) * Beiträge zur Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane (1891) * Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur physiologischen Optik (1903) * Einleitung zu den Vorlesungen über theoretische Physik (1903) * Vorlesungen über theoretische Physik (1967)


See also

*
Optical aberration In optics, aberration is a property of optical systems, such as Lens (optics), lenses and mirrors, that causes the ''image'' created by the optical system to not be a faithful reproduction of the ''object'' being observed. Aberrations cause the i ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Konig, Arthur 1856 births 1901 deaths 19th-century German physicists People from Krefeld Scientists from the Rhine Province