The German psychologist Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) was the originator of Gestalt psychology, which had a profound influence on the whole science of psychology.

Max Wertheimer was born in Prague on April 15, 1880. At the University in Prague he first studied law and then philosophy; he continued his studies in Berlin and then in Würzburg, where he received the doctorate in 1904. During the following years his work included research on the psychology of testimony, deriving no doubt from his early interest in law and his abiding interest in the nature of truth; he also carried on research in music, another lifelong interest.

In 1910 Wertheimer performed his now famous experiments on apparent movement, that movement which we see when, under certain conditions, two stationary objects are presented in succession at different places (a phenomenon familiar in moving pictures). This was the beginning of Gestalt psychology--a major revolution in psychological...