Adolf Zeising was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 psychologist

Psychologist

Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...

, whose main interests were mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 and philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

.

Among his discoveries, Zeising found the golden ratio

Golden ratio

In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.61803398874989...

 expressed in the arrangement of branches along the stems of plants and of veins in leaves. He extended his research to the skeletons of animals and the branchings of their veins and nerves, to the proportions of chemical compounds and the geometry of crystals, even to the use of proportion in artistic endeavors. In these phenomena he saw the golden ratio operating as a universal law,

the universal law in which is contained the ground-principle of all formative striving for beauty and completeness in the realms of both nature and art, and which permeates, as a paramount spiritual ideal, all structures, forms and proportions, whether cosmic or individual, organic or inorganic, acoustic or optical; which finds its fullest realization, however, in the human form.

Many of his studies were followed by Gustav Fechner

Gustav Fechner

Gustav Theodor Fechner , was a German experimental psychologist. An early pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics, he inspired many 20th century scientists and philosophers...

 and Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...

, who elaborated his studies of human proportion to develop the Modulor

Modulor

The Modulor is an anthropometric scale of proportions devised by the Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier .It was developed as a visual bridge between two incompatible scales, the Imperial system and the Metric system...

.

Works

• Zeitgedichte (1846)
• Neue Lehre von den Proportionen des menschlichen Körpers (1854)
• Ästhetische Forschungen (1855)
• Die Verhältnisse der Menschengestalt und der Blattstellung in ihrer Gleichheit und Verschiedenheit. (1855)
• Der menschliche Kopf im Profil (1856)
• Die Proportionen von reinen antiken Statuen (1856).
• Über die Metamorphosen in den Verhältnissen der menschlichen Gestalt von der Geburt bis zur Vollendung des Längenwachtums (1858)
• Kaiserin Eudoxia (1861)
• Hausse und Baisse (1864)
• Kunst und Gunst (1865)
• Joppe und Krinoline (1865)
• Die Verhältnisse des Kölner Doms (1869)
• Die regulären Polyeder (1869)
• Religion und Wissenschaft, Staat und Kirche (1873)