Johann Georg Sulzer

Who was Johann Georg Sulzer?

Johann Georg Sulzer was a Swiss professor of Mathematics, who later on moved on to the field of electricity. He was a Wolffian philosopher and director of the philosophical section of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and translator of David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals into German in 1755.

Sulzer is best known as the subject of an anecdote in the history of the development of the battery. In 1752, Sulzer happened to put the tip of his tongue between pieces of two different metals whose edges were in contact. He exclaimed, "a pungent sensation, reminds me of the taste of green vitriol when I placed my tongue between these metals." He thought the metals set up a vibratory motion in their particles which excited the nerves of taste. The event became known as the "battery tongue test": - the saliva serves as the electrolyte carrying the current between two metallic electrodes.

In his General Theory of Beautiful Art "…he [Sulzer] extended Baumgarten's approach into an even more psychological theory that the primary object of enjoyment in aesthetic experience is the state of one's own cognitive condition."