Georg Maier:
Brief Background and Publications

After taking his Ph.D. in physics in 1960, the late Georg Maier spent about seven years doing nuclear-based research, particularly in the field of neutron optics. From 1969 to 1998 he worked at the Research Institute of the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, pursuing investigations in many fields of physics and publishing numerous papers. His book, Optic der Bilder, was published in English in 2011 as An Optics of Visual Experience, by Adonis Press.

Georg passed away in Dornach on June 14, 2016.
Read Henrike Holdrege’s remembrance of him

Publications

The following publications are available on the Nature Institute website:

Being on Earth: Practice In Tending the Appearances (2006)
By Georg Maier, Ronald Brady, and Stephen Edelglass.

“The Classical Four Elements as Different Ways of Approaching Nature” (2017)

“Mirror Images” (2011)
Extracted from a chapter of his forthcoming book, An Optics of Visual Experience, our feature article is perhaps most noteworthy for its calm spirit of exact observation. Maier’s work reminds us that, however “commonplace” the subject matter, a well-trained receptivity can bring new insights and render the matter less common than our inattention may have led us to imagine. Meier's work is an invitation to discovery through disciplined perceiving.

“The Light of Sense Experience” (2006)
A physicist takes a brief look at the history of scientific thinking about light and asks whether we can work out an understanding of light consistent with the requirements of modern physics - that is, without imagining something that travels through space.