Hermann Ebbinghaus was a 19th century German psychologist who pioneered the study of learning and memory. Motivated by Gustav Fechner’s approach to experimental psychology, Ebbinghaus conducted trials where he systematically analyzed his memory—a fascination that led to his seminal work Über das Gedächtnis (Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology). In it, he forwarded the concept of the now well-known learning curve and the perhaps lesser-known but equally important forgetting curve.