A Mathematician's Journeys

OTTO NEUGEBAUER

between history and practice of the exact sciences

New York University, November 12-13, 2010

"A Mathematician's Journeys" is an innovative conference on the relationships between mathematics and history, to which both historians and mathematicians will contribute. It will be not merely a singular scholarly event but a stage in the developing partnership of the CNRS UMI "Transitions" at New York, NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Brown University, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, directed towards the study of the history and practice of mathematics as a transnational phenomenon from ancient to modern times. The conference interweaves two themes: the transmissions of the exact sciences among the ancient Old World civilizations from the second millennium BC to the late Middle Ages, and the migrations of European mathematicians in the 20th century. The conception of "ancient mathematics" as practically synonymous with Greek mathematics of the Euclidean tradition was shattered in the 1930s by European mathematicians studying ancient Egyptian and Babylonian texts, most notably in Otto Neugebauer's seminar at Göttingen.

2010 marks the twentieth anniversary of Otto Neugebauer’s death. Neugebauer, more than any other scholar of recent times, shaped the way we perceive and study ancient science. Less known among historians of science but just as important is his role in the contemporary mathematical community. Though he only coauthored a single mathematical paper not on a historical subject, Neugebauer’s career was at the heart of the mathematical life during the period before, during and after World War II. While tracing the ancient transmission of the mathematical sciences, Neugebauer was himself part of a modern stage of these processes, and his career as much as his scholarship responded to his conviction that mathematical reasoning was a phenomenon unlimited by nationality, language, or culture.

Organizing Committee: Alexander Jones, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University; Christine Proust, Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées; John Steele, Brown University; † John P. Britton.

For further information, consult the conference's blog here...or please email isaw@nyu.edu or phone (1) 212- 992-7843.

You can consult the program by clicking here...or read the abstracts by clicking here...