Scientific Work
Pfeffer was a pioneer of modern plant physiology. His scientific interests included the thermonastic and photonastic movements of flowers, the nyctinastic movements of leaves, protoplastic physics and photosynthesis. In 1877, while researching plant metabolism, Pfeffer developed a semi-porous membrane to study the phenomena of osmosis. The eponymous "Pfeffer cell" is named for the osmometric device he constructed for determining the osmotic pressure of a solution.
During his tenure at Leipzig, Pfeffer published an article on the use of photography to study plant growth. He wanted to extend the chronophotographic experiments of Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904) by producing a short film involving the stages of plant growth. This "movie" would be filmed over a period of weeks by frame-at-a-time exposure taken at regular spaced intervals. Later, time-lapse photography would become a commonplace procedure.
| Pfeffer cell | |||||||||
|
|||||||||
Read more about this topic: Wilhelm Pfeffer
Famous quotes containing the words scientific and/or work:
“To develop an empiricist account of science is to depict it as involving a search for truth only about the empirical world, about what is actual and observable.... It must involve throughout a resolute rejection of the demand for an explanation of the regularities in the observable course of nature, by means of truths concerning a reality beyond what is actual and observable, as a demand which plays no role in the scientific enterprise.”
—Bas Van Fraassen (b. 1941)
“The woman and the genius do not work. Up to now, woman has been mankind’s supreme luxury. In all those moments when we do our best, we do not work. Work is merely a means to these moments.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)