Despite being a fan of Goethe's writing and poetry, I somehow never knew about his work with color. I find this area fascinating, especially how it relates to language. What an interesting read to find on HN.
He worked in several fields like many "scientists" did back in those times. He was not merely a philosopher or a writer but also a statesman, anatomist, botanist and physicist.
I believe the specialisation of professions is merely a recent (100-200 years maybe?) phenomenon. We become too absorbed into our professional identities of being a programmer or biologist or engineer and tend to forget that we are of course more than just our job and have freedom to invest our intellectual rigour into anything and everything.
I heard, that he though of his scientific achievements much higher than of his poetry. Too bad, as today we think that his poetry was much better than his science ;-)
