Rupert Hall

Alfred Rupert Hall (born July 26, 1920 in Basford , England ; † February 5, 2009 ) was a British historian of science .

life and work

Rupert Hall was from 1950 assistant lecturer and 1953 to 1959 lecturer in the history of science at Cambridge. His well-known book "The Scientific Revolution 1500-1800" from 1954 emerged from the lectures. It was then that he began to study Isaac Newton's papers in the university archives. In Cambridge he also met his future wife (married in 1959) Marie Boas Hall , who researched the estate of Robert Boyle as a science historian in Cambridge from 1951 . Together they went to UCLA in 1957, to Indiana University in 1961, and from 1963 to Imperial College , where both retired in 1980. Both died in quick succession in February 2009.

In 1958, at his suggestion, the Whipple Museum was founded at Cambridge University, of which he was the first curator. He was assisted by Joseph Needham . With an attached library it became a center for science historians in Cambridge.

Hall was primarily concerned with the "Scientific Revolution" of the 17th century (a term he coined with his book from 1954), especially with Isaac Newton , whose biography he wrote.

With his second wife, Marie Boas Hall , he edited unpublished works by Isaac Newton in 1962. He was co-editor of Newton's Correspondence in the 1970s. He was also the editor of the extensive correspondence of the Secretary of the Royal Society Henry Oldenbourg (from 1965 to 1986 in 13 volumes) with his wife .

In 1981 he and his wife received the George Sarton Medal and in 1988 the Leeuwenhoek Medal of the Royal Society . He was a fellow of the British Academy .

Fonts

• Ballistics in the Seventeenth Century. A Study in the Relations of Science and War with Reference principally to England . Cambridge University Press, 1952
• The Scientific Revolution 1500-1800. The formation of the modern scientific attitude . Longmans Green, London 1954, 1962
• The birth of the scientific method 1630–1720. From Galileo to Newton . Mohn, Gütersloh 1963, 1965, English: From Galileo to Newton. 1630-1720 . 1963, Dover 1981
• with Marie Boas Hall : A Brief History of Science . New American Library, 1964
• The Cambridge Philosophical Society. A History, 1819-1969 . Cambridge 1969
• Philosophers at War. The Quarrel between Newton and Leibniz . Cambridge University Press, 1980
• The Revolution in Science. 1500-1750 . 3rd edition, Longman 1983
• Science and Society. Historical Essays on the Relations of Science, Technology and Medicine . Aldershot, Brookfield 1994
• Henry More and the scientific revolution - magic, religion and experiment . Cambridge University Press 1996, 2002 (first Oxford: Blackwell 1990)
• Everything light. An introduction to Newton's Optick . Oxford University Press, 1993
• Isaac Newton. Adventurer in thought . Cambridge University Press, 1992, 1996
• Isaac Newton. 18. Century perspectives . Oxford University Press, 1999
• The Abbey Scientists . London 1966
• Editor: Rise of modern science . Harper 1962 (German: Geschichte und Kosmos , Gütersloh 1965)

literature

• Frank AJL James: Alfred Rupert Hall, 1920-2009; Marie Boas Hall, 1919-2009 . In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy . tape 11 , 2012, p. 353–408 ( online [PDF; accessed August 5, 2017]).

Web links

• Professor Rupert Hall: science historian . In: Times . March 6, 2009 (obituary)
• Professor Rupert Hall (1920–2009)