Celebrating Otto Neugebauer

The life and work of Otto Neugebauer (1899-1990), founder of Brown's Department of History of Mathematics and recipient of Brown's most prestigious honor, the Rosenberger medal, in 1987, is examined in a newly published book, A Mathematicians Journey's: Otto Neugebauer and Modern Transformations of Ancient Science, co-edited by the department's John Steele.

The book looks at Neugebauer's career from his student days in Göttingen and Copenhagen, his principled stand against the Nazis in resigning from his position at the famous Mathematical Institute in Göttingen in 1933, and his move to Brown University in 1939. Neugebauer was unquestionably the most important historian of ancient science of the twentieth century, and his legacy lives on at Brown with the Department of Egyptology and Assyriology continuing to be a major center for the history of ancient science.

picture of the book A Mathematician's Joruneys