Past Member
Otto Neugebauer
Affiliation
Historical Studies
Natural Sciences
Otto Neugebauer was the most original and productive scholar of the history of the exact sciences, perhaps of the history of science, of our age. He began as a mathematician, turned first to Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics, and then took up the history of mathematical astronomy, to which he afterward devoted the greatest part of his attention. In a career of sixty-five years, he to a great extent created our understanding of mathematical astronomy from Babylon and Egypt, through Greco-Roman antiquity, to India, Islam, and Europe of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Through his colleagues, students, and many readers, his influence on the study of the history of the exact sciences remains profound, even definitive.
Dates at IAS
Member
School of Historical Studies
School of Natural Sciences
–
Member
School of Natural Sciences
–
Fall
Member
School of Mathematics
School of Historical Studies
–
Member
School of Mathematics
–
Spring
Member
School of Mathematics
–
Degrees
Univ of Göttingen.
Ph.D.
Honors
1986
Balzan Prize
1976, 1985
Pfizer Prize of Hist of Sci Soc
1961
American Council of Learned Societies' Award
1953
D Heineman Prize
1952
Am Philos Soc Lewis Award
Appointments
Founder and joint ed Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Math, Astron und Physik 1930-38