Joseph Fraunhofer

Born in Straubing, Bavaria on 6 March 1787 to a family of modest means and orphaned at the age of 11, Joseph von Fraunhofer was a glass-grinding apprentice when he was discovered by the privy counselor Joseph von Utzschneider. He took up employ in von Utzschneider's Optical Institute and, at the age of 22, became the director of glass manufacturing. He was responsible for the development of new methods of glass production and processing.

The optical instruments Fraunhofer developed, including the spectrometer and the diffraction grid, allowed Fraunhofer to conduct pioneering research in the fields of light and optics. He was the first to measure the spectrum of sunlight and characterize the dark absorption strips it contains: the "Fraunhofer lines". His independent, autodidactic work won him great acclaim from industry and government. The former apprentice later became a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have long since acknowledged the work of Fraunhofer as truly indicative that colour itself originates from the chemical content of things. This information was the basis on which Ghadiali Dinshah based his work, and forms a central maxim in the CCDH system of colour healing.