Otto E. Neugebauer
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (March 2013) |
Otto E. Neugebauer | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | February 19, 1990 | (aged 90)
Spouse | Grete Bruck |
Children | Margo Neugebauer, Gerry Neugebauer |
Parent | Rudolph Neugebauer |
Otto Eduard Neugebauer (May 26, 1899 – February 19, 1990) was an Austrian-American
Career
Neugebauer was born in
He returned to Göttingen and remained there until 1933. His thesis Die Grundlagen der ägyptischen Bruchrechnung ("The Fundamentals of Egyptian Calculation with Fractions") (Springer, 1926) was a mathematical analysis of the table in the
In 1929, Neugebauer founded Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik, Astronomie und Physik (QS), a Springer series devoted to the history of the mathematical sciences, in which he published extended papers on Egyptian computational techniques in arithmetic and geometry, including the
In 1931, he founded the review journal
In 1939, after the Zentralblatt was taken over by the
Neugebauer was also interested in chronology. He was able to reconstruct the Alexandrian Christian calendar and its origin from the Alexandrian Jewish calendar as of about the 4th century, at least 200 years prior to any other source for either calendar. Thus, the Jewish calendar was derived by combining the 19-year cycle using the Alexandrian year with the seven-day week, and was then slightly modified by the Christians to prevent Easter from ever coinciding with Passover. The ecclesiastical calendar, considered by church historians to be highly scientific and deeply complex, turned out to be quite simple.
In 1988, by studying a scrap of Greek
In 1986, Neugebauer was awarded the
Neugebauer began his career as a mathematician, then turned to
Prizes and honors
- John F. Lewis Prize (American Philosophical Society, 1952)
- Heineman Prize for the Exact Sciences, 1953
- American Council of Learned Societies' Award (1961)
- Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1967)
- Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (1973)
- Pfizer Award (1975 and 1985; History of Science Society)
- Distinguished Service Award, Mathematical Association of America (1979)
- Balzan Prize (1986) for pioneering studies in the field of exact sciences in antiquity, especially Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Greek astronomy
- Franklin Medal (American Philosophical Society, 1987)
- Susan Culver Rosenberger Medal of Honor (Brown University, 1987)
- Honorary doctorates from University of St Andrews (1938), Princeton University (1957) and Brown University (1971)
- Member of various scientific academies in Vienna, Paris, Copenhagen and Brussels, the British Academy, the Irish Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society
In 1936, he gave a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo. This was about pre-Greek mathematics and its position relative to the Greek.
Select publications
Articles
- 'The Chronology of the Hammurabi Age', in Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. lxi (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941).
- "The History of Ancient Astronomy Problems and Methods." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 4 (1945): 1–38.
- "Studies in Ancient Astronomy. VIII. The Water Clock in Babylonian Astronomy." Isis, Vol. 37, No. 1/2, pp. 37–43. (May, 1947). JSTOR link. Reprinted in Neugebauer (1983), pp. 239–245 (*).
- "The Early History of the Astrolabe." Isis 40 (1949): 240–56.
- "The Study of Wretched Subjects." Isis 42 (1951): 111.
- "On the 'Hippopede' of Eudoxus." Scripta Mathematica 19 (1953): 225–29.
- "Apollonius' Planetary Theory." Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 8 (1955): 641–48.
- "The Equivalence of Eccentric and Epicyclic Motion According to Apollonius." Scripta Mathematica 24 (1959): 5–21.
- "Thabit Ben Qurra 'On the Solar Year' and 'On the Motion of the Eighth Sphere.'" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 106 (1962): 264–98.
- (with Richard A. Parker) "Egyptian Astronomical Texts: III. Decans, Planets, Constellations, and Zodiacs." (Brown University Press, 1969)
- "On the Allegedly Heliocentric Theory of Venus by Heraclides Ponticus." American Journal of Philology 93 (1973): 600–601.
- "Notes on Autolycus." Centaurus 18 (1973): 66–69.
Books
- (with Abraham Sachs, eds.). Mathematical Cuneiform Texts. American Oriental Series, vol. 29. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1945.
- The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952; 2nd edition, Brown University Press, 1957; reprint, New York: Dover publications, 1969. ISBN 978-0-486-22332-2
- Astronomical Cuneiform Texts. 3 volumes. London:1956; 2nd edition, New York: Springer, 1983. (Commonly abbreviated as ACT)
- The Astronomical Tables of al-Khwarizmi. Historiskfilosofiske Skrifter udgivet af Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Bind 4, nr. 2. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1962.
- Ethiopic Astronomy and Computus. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1979.
- A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy, 3 vols. Berlin: Springer, 1975. (Commonly abbreviated as HAMA.)
- Astronomy and History: Selected Essays. New York: Springer, 1983.
- (with ISBN 978-1-4613-8262-1
References
- ^ Neugebauer, O. (1937). "Über griechische Mathematik und ihr Verhältnis zur Vorgriechischen". In: Comptes rendus du Congrès international des mathématiciens: Oslo, 1936. Vol. 1. pp. 157–170.
External links
- Otto E. Neugebauer at the Database of Classical Scholars
- Swerdlow, N. M. (1998), Otto E. Neugebauer 1899–1990 (PDF), United States National Academy of Sciences
- Otto E. Neugebauer — Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
- Masters of Math, From Old Babylon (November 26, 2010 New York Times article on exhibition honoring Neugebauer)
- Otto Neugebauer – Institute for Advanced Study
- Before Pythagoras: The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics – Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Otto E. Neugebauer", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- Otto E. Neugebauer at the Mathematics Genealogy Project