Derek J. de Solla Price
| Derek J. de Solla Price | |
|---|---|
Derek de Solla Price with a model of the Antikythera mechanism
|
|
| Born | 22 January 1922 |
| Died | 3 September 1983 (aged 61) |
| Institutions |
University of London University of Cambridge Institute for Advanced Study Yale University |
| Known for | Scientometrics |
| Notable awards | John Desmond Bernal Prize (1981) |
Derek John de Solla Price (22 January 1922 – 3 September 1983) was a physicist, historian of science, and information scientist, credited as the father of scientometrics.
Price was born in Leyton, England, to Philip Price, a tailor, and Fanny de Solla, a singer. He began work in 1938 as an assistant in a physics laboratory at the South West Essex Technical College, before studying Physics and Mathematics at the University of London, where he received a Bachelor of Science in 1942. He obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in experimental physics from the University of London in 1946.
Price worked as a teacher of applied mathematics at Raffles College (which was to become part of the University of Singapore in 1948). It was there that he formulated his theory on the exponential growth of science, an idea that occurred to him when he noticed the characteristic log curve of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society between 1665 and 1850, which he had stacked against his wall at home while Raffles College had its library built.
After three years, Price returned to England to work on a second Ph.D., in the history of science, this time at the University of Cambridge. During his Ph.D. studies, he accidentally discovered Equatorie of the Planetis, a manuscript written in Middle English, which he attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer.
...
Wikipedia