Helge Kragh
{{short description|Danish historian of science (born 1944)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2016}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Helge Kragh
| image = Helge Kragh 2019 cropped.JPG
| image_size =
| caption = Helge Kragh, 2019
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1944|2|13}}
| birth_place =
| nationality = Danish
| death_date =
| death_place =
| field = Science historian
| work_institution = Aarhus University, Denmark
| alma_mater = University of Copenhagen, Roskilde University
| doctoral_advisor =
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = History of cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics
| awards = Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics (2019)
}}
Helge Stjernholm Kragh (born February 13, 1944) is a Danish historian of science who focuses on the development of 19th century physics, chemistry, and astronomy.
His published work includes biographies of Paul Dirac, Julius Thomsen and Ludvig Lorenz, and The Oxford Handbook of the History of Modern Cosmology (2019) which he co-edited with Malcolm Longair.
Biography
Kragh studied physics and chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, graduating with a degree in 1970. He earned his Ph.D. in physics in 1981 at the University of Roskilde. He received a second doctorate, in philosophy, from the University of Aarhus in 2007.{{cite web |title=Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics: Recipient Helge Kragh Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen |url=https://www.aps.org/units/fhp/awards/recipient.cfm?first_nm=Helge&last_nm=Kragh&year=2019 |website=APS Physics |access-date=16 January 2020}}
Kragh was an associate professor of history of science at Cornell University from 1987 to 1989, a professor at the University of Oslo from 1995 to 1997, and a professor at Aarhus University in Denmark from 1997 to 2015.
As of 2015 he retired, becoming emeritus professor at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
He is also a professor emeritus at the Centre for Science Studies of Aarhus University.{{cite web |title=Academic staff |url=https://css.au.dk/en/academic-staff/ |website=Centre for Science Studies Department of Mathematics Aarhus University |access-date=16 January 2020}}
Kragh's areas of study are the history of physics from the mid-19th century onward, the history of astronomy, the history of cosmology and the history of chemistry. He is known for his work on the history of the periodic system, early quantum atomic models, speculative cosmology and the northern lights.
Honors and awards
- 2019, Roy G. Neville Prize for Julius Thomsen: A Life in Chemistry and Beyond (2016), Science History Institute{{cite web|url= https://www.sciencehistory.org/roy-g-neville-prize|title= Roy G. Neville Prize in Bibliography or Biography|publisher= Science History Institute|access-date= 1 February 2018|archive-date= June 5, 2023|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230605131528/https://www.sciencehistory.org/roy-g-neville-prize|url-status= dead}}{{cite news |title=Roy G. Neville Prize awarded to Helge Kragh |url=https://www.nbarchive.dk/news/kragh_roy-g-neville-prize/ |access-date=16 January 2020 |work=Niels Bohr Archive |date=14 September 2019}}
- 2019, Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics, American Physical Society (APS){{cite news |title=Professor Emeritus Helge Kragh receives the prestigeous [sic] Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics 2019 |url=https://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/namely_names/2019/helge-kragh-awarded-the-abraham-pais-prize-for-history-of-physics-2019/ |access-date=16 January 2020 |work=Niels Bohr Institute |date=29 May 2019}}
- President, European Society for the History of Science 2008–2010{{Cite web |title=Scientific Board |url=https://www.eshs.org/scientific-board/ |access-date=November 29, 2024 |website=European Society for the History of Science}}{{cite journal |last1=Rocha |first1=Gustavo Rodrigues |last2=Kragh |first2=Helge |title=Interview: Helge Kragh |journal=Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science |date=28 June 2017 |issue=2 |pages=233 |doi=10.24117/2526-2270.2017.i2.20 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318122362 |access-date=16 January 2020|doi-access=free }}
- Member, Académie Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences (corresponding member since 1995, full member since 2005){{cite web|url=http://www.aihs-iahs.org/en/node/571|title=Helge Kragh|website=International Academy of the History of Science|access-date=2016-01-24}}
- Member, Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters{{cite web|url=http://www.royalacademy.dk/en/Members?lastname=k&page=2|title=Members |website=Videnskabernes Selskab (The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters |access-date=2016-01-24}}
Selected writings
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Dirac: a scientific biography | publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press | publication-place=Cambridge | date=1992 | isbn=978-0-521-38089-8}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Cosmology and controversy: the historical development of two theories of the universe | publisher=Princeton University Press | publication-place=Princeton, NJ | date=1996 | isbn=978-0-691-02623-7}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Quantum generations: a history of physics in the twentieth century | publisher=Princeton University Press | publication-place=Princeton, NJ Chichester | date=2002 | isbn=978-0-691-01206-3}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=An introduction to the historiography of science | publisher=Cambridge University Press | publication-place=Cambridge | date=2003 | isbn=978-0-521-38921-1}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Matter and spirit in the universe: scientific and religious preludes to modern cosmology | publisher=Imperial College Press; Distributed by World Scientific Pub | publication-place=London : Singapore; Hackensack, NJ | date=2004 | isbn=978-1-86094-485-7 | oclc=ocm57706081}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Conceptions of cosmos: from myths to the accelerating universe | publisher=Oxford University press | publication-place=New York | date=2007 | isbn=978-0-19-920916-3}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=The moon that wasn't: the saga of Venus' spurious satellite | publisher=Birkhäuser | publication-place=Basel | date=2008 | isbn=978-3-7643-8908-6}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Entropic creation: religious contexts of thermodynamics and cosmology | publisher=Ashgate | publication-place=Aldershot | date=2008 | isbn=978-0-7546-6414-7}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge S. | last2=Overduin | first2=James | title=The Weight of the Vacuum: A Scientific History of Dark Energy | publisher=Springer | publication-place=Heidelberg | date=2014 | isbn=978-3-642-55089-8}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Higher Speculation: Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmologys | publisher=Oxford University Press, USA | publication-place=Oxford | date=2014 | isbn=978-0-19-872637-1}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Masters of the universe: conversations with cosmologists of the past | publisher=Oxford university press | publication-place=Oxford | date=2015 | isbn=978-0-19-872289-2}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Julius Thomsen: A Life in Chemistry and Beyond | publisher=Nord Academic | publication-place=København | date=2016 | isbn=978-87-7304-401-8}}
- {{cite book | title=Varying gravity: dirac's legacy in cosmology and geophysics | publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg | publication-place=New York, NY | date=2016 | isbn=978-3-319-24377-1 }}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Ludvig Lorenz: A Nineteenth-Century Theoretical Physicist | publisher=Nord Academic | publication-place=København | date=2018 | isbn=978-87-7304-417-9}}
- {{cite book | last=Kragh | first=Helge | title=Den sære historie om Venus' måne | publisher=Lindhardt og Ringhof | date=2020| isbn=978-87-11-98400-0 | language=da}}
- {{cite book |editor-last1=Knight |editor-first1=David |editor-link1=David M. Knight |editor-last2=Kragh |editor-first2=Helge | title=The making of the chemist: the social history of chemistry in Europe, 1789-1914 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | publication-place=Cambridge, UK; New York | date=1998 | isbn=978-0-521-58351-0 }}
- {{cite book | title=Science in Denmark: a thousand-year history |editor-last1=Hvidtfeldt-Nielsen |editor-first1=Kristian |editor-last2=Kjaergaard |editor-first2=Peter |editor-last3=Kragh |editor-first3=Helge |editor-last4=Nielsen |editor-first4=Henry | publisher=Aarhus University Press | publication-place=Aarhus | date=2008 | isbn=978-87-7934-317-7 }}
- {{cite book | editor-last=Kragh | editor-first=Helge | editor-last2=Longair | editor-first2=Malcolm S. | title=The Oxford handbook of the history of modern cosmology | publisher=Oxford university press | publication-place=New York | date=2019 | isbn=978-0-19-881766-6}}
- [https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.11299 Max Weinstein: Physics, Philosophy, Pandeism], History and Philosophy of Physics, 2019
- Foreword, Max B. Weinstein, [https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08RC1XQWH/ World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature], trans. Deborah Moss, 2021
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20181006171349/http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/helge-kragh(2d1bdf37-f005-4eed-8eed-e0d2e4a863b1)/publications.html List of Kragh's publications up to 2015 at Aarhus University]
References
{{reflist}}{{s-start}}
{{s-npo|pro}}
{{s-bef
| before = Eberhard Knobloch
}}
{{s-ttl
| title = President of the European Society for the History of Science
| years = 2008–2010
}}
{{s-aft
| after = Sona Strbanova
}}
{{s-end}}{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kragh, Helge}}
Category:Historians of physics
Category:21st-century Danish physicists