Otto E. Neugebauer

Otto E. 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 realized hitherto. He has been called "the most original and productive scholar of the history of the exact sciences ... of our age" (from the N.A.S. biography).

In 1931 he founded the mathematical reviewing journal Zentralblatt für Mathematik and in 1939, after the Zentralblatt was taken over by the Nazis, he founded Mathematical Reviews in the U.S.A. to take its place. In 1967 he was awarded the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship by the American Astronomical Society. In 1979 he received the Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics from the Mathematical Association of America for founding these journals.

Select Publications

Articles

• "The Early History of the Astrolabe." Isis 40 (1939): 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.

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.
• A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy 3 vols. Berlin: Springer, 1975. (Commonly abbreviated as HAMA)
• Astronomy and History: Selected Essays. New York: Springer, 1983.

External links

• National Academy of Sciences biography
• Biography at the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.