WERNER- WESLEY the Development of the School, Whi Ch Rose to Be One of the Cen Czech., on April 15, 1880
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4.12 WERNER- WESLEY the development of the school, whi ch rose to be one of the cen Czech., on April 15, 1880. H e studied phi losophy and psychology tres of scientific learning in Europe. He died at Freiberg on at Prague and Berlin and received his Ph.D. smnma cum, la 1tde June 30, 1817. from Wifrzburg in 1904. He taught at Frankfurt and then at Ber One of the di stinguishing features of Werner's teaching was lin , returning to Frank furt in 1929 to accept the chair in psychol the care with ·which he taught lithology and the succession of ogy. In 1933 he moved to the Uni ted States, joining the New geological formations ; a subject to which he applied the name Scho ol fo r Social Research in New York City, where he held a geognosy. His views on a definite geological succession were in professorship until hi s death on Oct. 12, 1943 . spired by the wo rks of J. G. Lehmann and G. C. Fuchsel ( 17 22- Wertheimer's profound influence on psychology came mainly 73) . He showed that the rocks of the earth foll ow each other in through hi s many devoted students. His writings ranged widely, a certain definite order. He had never traveled, and the sequence including such field s as the psychology of perception and of think of rock-masses which he had recognized in Saxony was believed ing, crime detection , musicology, and philosophical problems of by him to be of universal appli cation. He taught that the rocks logic, ethics, and truth. His 1912 paper on apparent movement were precipitates of a primeval ocean, and fol lowed each other in launched the Gestalt school, whi ch he, with Wolfgang Kohler , Kurt successive deposits of worldwide extent. Volcanoes were regarded Koffka (qq.v. ) , and others, made one of the major approaches of by him as abnormal phenomena, probably clue to the combustion modern psychology (see further GESTALT PSYCHO LOGY) . of subterranean beds of coal. Basalt and similar rocks, already See Edwin B. Newman, "Max Wertheim er ( 1880- 1943 ) ," Ain. J. recognized by other observers as of igneous origin , he believed Psycho!., 57:42 8-435 (1944); R. J. Hcrrnstein and E.G. Boring (eds.), to be water-formed accumulations of the same ancient ocean. Source Booh in the History of Psychology ( 1965). (M. M . WR.) Hence arose one of the great historical controversies of geology, WESEL, a town of West Germany, in the Dusseldorf admin Werner's fo llowers, known as neptunists, preaching the now ob istrative di strict of the Land (state) of N orth Rhine-Westphalia solete doctrine that all rocks were formed by precipitation from (Nordrhein-Westfalen) , Federal R epubli c of Germany. P op. water; their opponents, plutonists, stressing the important part ( 1961) 32,002. Lying on the Rhine, the Lippe, and the Lippe taken in the construction of the earth's crust by subterranean branch canal, Wesel has for centuries been an important trade and heat (see GEOLOGY: D evelopment of the Science). shi pping centre (it was a member of the Hanseatic League from Though much of Werner's theoretical work was erroneous, sci 1407), and it has large harbour install ations as well as ma ny in ence is indebted to him for so clearly demonstrating the chrono dustri al plants and other business enterprises. The town was logical succession of rocks. granted municipal status in 1241. P eter Minuit, the first gov WERNER, ALFRED (1 866- 1919), French-Swiss chemist, ernor of New York (New Netherland), wa s born there about 15 00. won the 191 3 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work based on hi s co From 1680 to 191 8 Wesel was a Brandenburg-Prussian garrison ordination theory of valency. He was born at Mulhouse, in Al town. Wesel was almost completely destroyed by air raids during sace, on Dec. 12 , 1866 . In 1886 he went to Zi.irich to study and World War II. It has since been rebuilt as a modern city, its new later worked there with Georg Lunge and in Paris with Marcelin architectural di stinction being crowned by the Municipal Play- Berthelot. In 1893 he returned to Zurich where he taught chem house completed in 195 8. (H . KK. ) istry until his death on Nov. 15, 1919. WESER, one of the chief rivers of Germany, 296 mi. (47i Werner's earliest wo rk was with Arthur Hantzsch (q.v.) on km .) long, rising in central Germany to flow generally northward the stereochemistry of the oximes (q.v.) . His greatest contri bu and discharge into the North Sea at Bremerhaven. Bremen (q.v. ) , tion, the coordination theory (see CO-ORDINATION COMPOUNDS; the country's second largest port (after H amburg) , is on the VALENCE: W erner's Co-ordina.tion Theory), was put forward in Weser, 65 mi. ( 105 km .) from its mouth. 1893 . Werner stated that he awoke one day at 2 A.M. as the The Weser proper originates at Mi.inden (about ten miles below theory flashed into hi s co nsciousness and by 5 P.M . had worked Kassel, in the Land of Hesse) by the union of its heads treams, out its essential features. The theory not only provided a sim the Werra and the Fulda. The W erra ri ses in the southwestern ple method of classifying complex inorganic compounds but also slopes of the Thuringer Wald and first flow s northwest , then cuts brought to light unsuspected cases of isomerism, including com across the highlands of the Thuringer Wald before resuming its pounds whose optical activity is due to elements other than car northwesterly course. The Fulda, ri sing on the northern slopes bon. He and his students prepared numerous new series of com of the Hohe Rhiin, flo ws northward through a zone of wooded pounds and fitted them into the new system, and he wrote two limestone and sandstone uplands, passing by the small town of textbooks and more than 150 technical papers. Although Werner's Fulda and the large city of Kassel. Below Munden the Weser pur views had to be modified sli ghtly, they may be said to underlie sues a winding course through cultivated lowlands a nd wooded the modern development of inorganic chemistry, since they de hills till it cuts through the ridge of the Wiehen-Wesergebirge by parted from inadequate theories of structure based on the study the Gap of Minden on the Porta Westfalica (W estphalian Gate) . of carbon compounds and prepared the way for the much broader There, at Minden, it enters the N orthern Lowland. It crosses the electronic theory of valency. Werner deserves to be ranked with heath and boglands in a wide floodplain to Bremen and then en Friedrich Kekule as an originator of structure theory. ters its long, narrow estuary before reaching l3remerhaven (q.v.) . BrnLIOGRAPIIY.- Obituary notice by G. T. Morgan in J. Chem. Soc. Its chi ef tributary in the northern lowlands is the Aller (with the ( 1920) ; K. A. Hofmann, B erichte der deutschen chemischen Gesell Leine), which drains the country around Brunswick and H anover. schaft (1920) ; P. Karrer, H elvetica chimica acta (1920); P. Pfeiffer The Geeste enters the Weser at Bremerhaven. in J. Chem. Educ. (1928). (R. E. O.; X.) The Weser has a winter maximum and summer minimum fl ow, WERNIGERODE, a town of East Germany, a regional cap and its course is meandering and varying in depth. It is navigable ital in the Bezirll (di stri ct) of Magdeburg, German Democratic for 1,000-ton barges to Munden, and improvements are p lanned Republic, li es at the northern foot of the Harz Mountains about that will make it possible for barges of this size to reach Kassel. 50 mi. (80 km.) SW of Magdeburg. Pop. (1 964) 32 ,676. It is a The Mittelland Canal (q. v.), carrying barges up to 1,000 tons, health resort and vacation centre and is dominated by the castle, provides connections with the Ems, Rhine, and E lbe waterways. which contains a fe udal museum. Many old timber-framed build At Bremerhaven the river is just over a mi le wide. It is ob ings, including the 15th- century town hall, have been preserved. structed by extensive sandbanks, through which there is a dredged The town is a road junction and on the Halberstadt-Goslar rail channel. The estuary is marked by buoys upriver to Bremen. way. Manufactures include electri c motors, machine tools, foo d Annual traffic on the lower Weser amounts to 4,700,000 tons lt stuffs, pharmaceutical goods, glass, and paper; there are brick and l3remen and to another 3,400,000 tons at small ports. The middle timber works. Nearby are quarries and iron, ore, pyrites, and Weser, upstream to Minden, ca rries 2,2 00,000 tons ; the upper limestone mines. Wernigerode was first mentioned in do cuments Weser (including the Werra and the Fulda ) , 1,500,000 tons. in 11 21 and received its muni cipal charter in 1229. (R. E. Dr.) WERTHEIMER, MAX ( 1880-1943), German psychologist WESLEY, CHARLES ( 1707- 1788) , Engli sh cl ergyman. and philosopher, founder of the Gestalt theory, was born in Prague, poet, and hymn writer, who with his elder brother John started WESLEY the Methodist movement in the Church of England, was born succumbing too easil y to pressure from the Methodist lay preach Dec. 18, 1707, at Epworth , Lincolnshire. (For hi s parentage and ers that he shoul d enhance their status. especiall y by allowing upbringing see W ES LEY, JO HN .) In 17 16 he entered ,;\,lestminster them to administer the sacraments.