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 (i.e., mathematical) 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. He has been called "most original and productive scholar of the history of the exact sciences, perhaps of the history of science, of our age." (from the N.A.S. biography).
In 1931 he founded the mathematical reviewing journal Zentralblatt für Mathematik and in 1934, joined the University of Copenhagen as full professor of mathematics. In 1939, after the Zentralblatt was taken over by the Nazis, he moved to the United States, joined the mathematics department at Brown University, and founded Mathematical Reviews. He remained at Brown for the rest of his career, founding the History of Mathematics Department there in 1947, and becoming University Professor. In 1967 he was awarded the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship by the American Astronomical Society. In 1977, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1979, he received the Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics from the Mathematical Association of America.
Select publications
Articles
- "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.
- "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.
- "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 (*).
- (with Richard A. Parker) "Egyptian Astronomical Texts: Iii. Decans, Planets, Constellations, and Zodiacs."
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.
- 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 undgivet af Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Bind 4, nr. 2. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1962.
- Ethiopic Astronomy and Computus. Wien: 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.
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