Editing Ewald Hering (section)

== Biography ==

===Early years===

Hering was born in Alt-Gersdorf in Saxony, Germany. He probably grew up in a poor family, son of a Lutheran pastor. Hering attended gymnasium in Zittau and entered the university of Leipzig in 1853. There he studied philosophy, zoology and medicine. He completed an M.D. degree in 1860.

It is somewhat unclear how Hering trained to do research. At the time [[Johannes Peter Müller]] was perhaps the most famous physiologist in Germany. Hering seems to have applied for studying under his direction but was rejected,{{citation needed|date=August 2018}} which might have contributed to his animosity towards [[Hermann von Helmholtz]], Müller's protégé. However, in Leipzig, E. H. Weber and G. T. Fechner were conducting groundbreaking studies founding what would become the field of [[psychophysics]]. Although there is no evidence that Hering ever studied under their direction, in his later years he proudly acknowledged himself a "student of Fechner".

After graduating, Hering practiced as a physician in Leipzig. Despite having little time to do research and having even scarcer financial resources, he turned to [[binocular vision]] (using both eyes together) and the problem of the [[horopter]] (the points in space that project on anatomically identical points on the two [[retina]]s). There, he surprised the scientific community when he published, as a completely unknown scientist, his own mathematical derivation of the horopter independently from Hermann von Helmholtz, who was by then considered one of the best German scientists and mathematicians. Hering went as far as ridiculing Helmholtz's (unimportant) mathematical errors in his derivation of the horopter.

===University posts===

Hering was subsequently appointed professor of physiology at the military academy of Vienna until 1870. With better resources he conducted important studies in physiology, in particular on the cardiac and respiratory systems. In 1870, he succeeded [[Jan Evangelista Purkinje]] at the university of Prague where he remained for the next 25 years. There he became involved in fierce arguments between nationalistic Czechs who wanted the university taught in the language of the land, and a minority of German professors. Eventually a separate German university, Charles-Ferdinand University, was created in 1882 and Hering became its first rector.

In his late years, Hering returned to Germany, where he became professor at the university of Leipzig in 1895, aged 61. He retired in 1915 and died of tuberculosis three years later. He was an atheist.<ref>"Ernst Mach". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 21 May 2008. Retrieved 4 September 2012. Hering and Mach were atheists, and disbelieved in a soul, but still accepted the idea that nature had internal direction.</ref>