Asger Aaboe
{{Short description|Historian}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Asger Aaboe
| image = Asger Aaboe.jpg
| birth_name = Asger Hartvig Aaboe
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1922|04|26}}
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2007|01|19|1922|04|26}}
| nationality = Danish
| education = *University of Copenhagen
}}
Asger Hartvig Aaboe (26 April 1922 – 19 January 2007) was a Danish historian of the exact sciences and mathematics who was best known for his contributions to the history of ancient Babylonian astronomy. In his studies of Babylonian astronomy, he went beyond analyses in terms of modern mathematics to seek to understand how the Babylonians conceived their computational schemes.Britten (2006), p. 120Goldstein (2007), p. 263.Steele (2007), p. 378.
Aaboe studied mathematics and astronomy at the University of Copenhagen, and in 1957 obtained a PhD in the History of Science from Brown University, where he studied under Otto Neugebauer, writing a dissertation "On Babylonian Planetary Theories". In 1961, he joined the Department of the History of Science and Medicine at Yale University, serving as chair from 1968 to 1971, and continuing an active career there until retiring in 1992. At Yale, his doctoral students included Alice Slotsky and Noel Swerdlow.{{mathgenealogy|id=13670}}
He was elected to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1975, served as president of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1970 to 1980, and was a member of many other scholarly societies.
In 1987, a festschrift was published in honor of Asger Aaboe's 65th birthday.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vq3aAAAAMAAJ | title=From Ancient Omens to Statistical Mechanics: Essays on the Exact Sciences Presented to Asger Aaboe | isbn=978-87-7709-002-8 | editor=Berggren, J. L. | editor2=Goldstein, Bernard R. | date=1987 | publisher=University Library, Copenhagen|postscript=; xx+298 pages }}
Aaboe married Joan Armstrong on 14 July 1950. The marriage produced four children: Kirsten Aaboe, Erik Harris Aaboe, Anne Aaboe, Niels Peter Aaboe.{{MacTutor Biography|id=Aaboe|mode=cs1}}
Selected publications
- Episodes from the Early History of Mathematics, New York: Random House, 1964. {{LCCN|63021916}}
- {{cite book|title=1998 pbk edition|series=New Mathematical Library, vol. 13|date=1963 |location=Washington, DC|publisher=Mathematical Association of America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5wGzF0wPFYgC|isbn=0-88385-613-1|postscript=; x+133 pages}}
- "Scientific Astronomy in Antiquity", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, A.276, (1974: 21–42). {{doi|10.1098/rsta.1974.0007}}
- "Mesopotamian Mathematics, Astronomy, and Astrology", The Cambridge Ancient History (2nd. ed.), Vol. III, part 2, chap. 28b, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, {{ISBN|978-0-521-22717-9}}; [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-ancient-history/babylonian-mathematics-astrology-and-astronomy/57E3BD48E8A7C2B70E7F574733109462 chapter summary]
- Episodes from the Early History of Astronomy, New York: Springer, 2001, {{ISBN|0-387-95136-9}}, {{LCCN|00061919}}{{cite web|author=Brennan, Tom|date=October 19, 2002|title=review of Episodes from the Early History of Mathematics by Asger Aaboe|website=MAA Reviews, Mathematical Association of America|url=https://maa.org/press/maa-reviews/episodes-from-the-early-history-of-astronomy}}
- {{cite book|title=2011 pbk edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kZnxBwAAQBAJ|isbn=978-1-461-30109-7|postscript=; xv+172 pages | last1=Aaboe | first1=Asger | date=27 June 2011 | publisher=Springer }}
Notes
{{reflist}}
References
- {{Cite journal | last = Berggren | first = Len | title = Asger Hartvig Aaboe: 26 April 1922 to 19 January 2007 | journal = Centaurus | volume = 49 | issue = 2 | pages = 172–7 | publisher = Blackwell Munksgaard | year = 2007
| doi = 10.1111/j.1600-0498.2007.00065.x}} ([https://people.math.sfu.ca/~berggren/ Len Berggren, Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University])
- {{Cite journal | last = Britton | first = John P. | title = In memoriam Asger Hartvig Aaboe (26 April 1922 – 19 January 2007) | journal = Aestimatio | volume = 3 | pages = 119–22 | publisher = Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science | year = 2006 | url = http://www.ircps.org/sites/ircps.org/files/aestimatio/3/2006-10-03_Britton.pdf | access-date = 13 September 2016 | archive-date = 27 April 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180427172713/http://www.ircps.org/sites/ircps.org/files/aestimatio/3/2006-10-03_Britton.pdf | url-status = dead }} (John P. Britton's Ph.D. thesis was supervised by Asger Aaboe and Bernard R. Goldstein. See: {{cite journal|url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81169588.pdf|doi=10.1016/j.hm.2011.03.003 |title=John P. Britton (1939–2010) |date=2011 |last1=Steele |first1=John |journal=Historia Mathematica |volume=38 |issue=3 |pages=335–337 }})
- {{Cite journal | last = Goldstein | first = Bernard R. |author-link=Bernard R. Goldstein |title = Asger Hartvig Aaboe (1922–2007) | journal = Journal for the History of Astronomy | volume = 38 | issue = 2 | pages = 261–3 | publisher = Science History Publications | location = Cambridge, UK | year = 2007}}
- {{Cite journal | doi = 10.1086/529271 | last = King | first = David A. |author-link=David A. King (historian) |title = Eloge: Asger Hartvig Aaboe (1922–2007) | journal = Isis | volume = 98 | issue = 4 | pages = 796–8 | publisher = University of Chicago Press | location = Chicago | year = 2007}}
- {{Cite journal | last = Steele | first = John M.| title = In Memoriam: Asger Aaboe (1922–2007) | journal = Historia Mathematica | volume = 34 | issue = 3 | pages = 377–9 | publisher = Elsevier | year = 2007 | doi = 10.1016/j.hm.2007.07.001| doi-access = free }} {[https://vivo.brown.edu/display/jmsteele John M. Steele, Charles Edwin Wilbour Professor of Egyptology and Assyriology, Brown U.])
{{Authority control}}
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Category:20th-century Danish mathematicians
Category:21st-century Danish mathematicians
Category:Historians of science
Category:Danish historians of mathematics
Category:Historians of astronomy
Category:Danish expatriates in the United States
Category:University of Copenhagen alumni