Neugebauer Conference at ISAW: November 12-13, 2010

A Mathematician's Journeys:
Otto Neugebauer between history and practice of the exact sciences

The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University

Lecture Hall
15 East 84th Street
New York, NY 10028
isaw@nyu.edu
www.nyu.edu/isaw
*events are free and open to the public

Please RSVP day(s) attending to isaw@nyu.edu

Friday and Saturday, November 12-13, 2010

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.

In the present conference, which will be hosted by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU, we propose to cast new light on the many facets of Neugebauer's career, his impact on the history and practice of mathematics, and the ways in which his legacy has been preserved or transformed in recent decades, looking ahead to the directions in which the study of the history of science will head in the twenty-first century.

Participants:
Lis Brack-Bernsen, University of Regensburg
Karine Chemla, CNRS REHSEIS-SPHERE
Dennis Duke, Florida State University
B.R. Goldstein, University of Pittsburgh
Jens Høyrup, University of Roskilde
Hermann Hunger, University of Vienna
Teije de Jong, University of Amsterdam
Agathe Keller, CNRS REHSEIS-SPHERE
Duncan Melville, St. Lawrence University
Mathieu Ossendrijver, University of Tübingen and ISAW, NYU
Christine Proust, Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées, Marseille
Lewis Pyenson, Western Michigan University
Jim Ritter, Université de Paris 8
David Rowe, University of Mainz
Janet Sachs-Toomer, Boca Raton
George Saliba, Columbia University
R. Siegmund-Schultze, University of Agder
John Steele, Brown University
N. M. Swerdlow, California Institute of Technology
G. J. Toomer, Boca Raton

Respondents:
Jed Buchwald, California Institute of Technology
Sylvain Cappell, Courant Institute, NYU
Harold Edwards, Courant Institute, NYU
Peter Lax, Courant Institute, NYU

2023: The conference website included a "Web Exhibition: Neugebauer at Göttingen", presently only accessible through the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

This conference is made possible through the support of the Leon Levy Foundation, and of the following institutions: Brown University; Courant Institute, NYU; Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; Transitions (CNRS-NYU); REHSEIS (CNRS), and CNRS.