Otto Neugebauer
| Otto E. Neugebauer | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 26, 1899 Innsbruck, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | February 19, 1990 (aged 90) Princeton, New Jersey |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Spouse(s) | Grete Bruck |
| Children | Margo Neugebauer, Gerry Neugebauer |
| Parent(s) | Rudolph Neugebauer |
Otto Eduard Neugebauer (May 26, 1899 – February 19, 1990) was an Austrian American mathematician and historian of science who became known for his research on the history of astronomy and the other exact sciences in antiquity and into the Middle Ages. By studying clay tablets, he discovered that the ancient Babylonians knew much more about mathematics and astronomy than had been previously realized. The National Academy of Sciences has called Neugebauer "the most original and productive scholar of the history of the exact sciences, perhaps of the history of science, of our age."
Neugebauer began as a mathematician, then turned to Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics, and then took up the history of mathematical astronomy. In a career of sixty-five years, he largely created our current understanding of mathematical astronomy from Babylon and Egypt, through Greco-Roman antiquity, to India, Islam, and Europe of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His influence on the study of the history of the exact sciences is profound.
Neugebauer was born in Innsbruck, Austria. His father Rudolph Neugebauer was a railroad construction engineer and a collector and scholar of Oriental carpets. His parents died when he was quite young. During World War I, Neugebauer enlisted in the Austrian Army and served as an artillery lieutenant on the Italian front and then in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp alongside fellow-countryman Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 1919, he entered the University of Graz in electrical engineering and physics and, in 1921, transferred to the University of Munich. From 1922 to 1924, he studied mathematics at the University of Göttingen under Richard Courant, Edmund Landau, and Emmy Noether. During 1924–25, he was at the University of Copenhagen, where his interests changed to the history of Egyptian mathematics.
...
Wikipedia