I. Bernard Cohen

I. Bernard Cohen (born March 1, 1914 in Far Rockaway , Long Island (now New York City ), † June 20, 2003 in Waltham , Massachusetts ) was an American historian of science .

Life

Cohen studied at Harvard University (bachelor's degree in 1937) and was there a student of George Sarton . He received his doctorate from Harvard in 1947 and then stayed at the university until his death, most recently as "Victor S. Thomas Professor" for the history of science.

His work dealt with varied topics, but especially Isaac Newton . He examined the genesis of Newton's main work, the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, and in 1974 published a new critical edition and a new English translation (with Anne Whitman), on which he had worked for over 15 years. Cohen's interview with Albert Einstein in April 1955 was the famous physicist's last (published in the Scientific American July 1957 issue). He was also involved in the scientific work of Benjamin Franklin and William Harvey .

In 1952 Cohen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Since 1995 he was a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1974 he was awarded the George Sarton Medal , the highly prestigious prize for the history of science from the History of Science Society (HSS) founded by George Sarton and Lawrence Joseph Henderson .

Fonts

• Franklin and Newton: An Inquiry into Speculative Newtonian Experimental Science and Franklin's Work in Electricity as an Example thereof , Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1956
• The Birth of a New Physics , Anchor Books 1960
• Science: Server of man. A layman's primer for the age of science. London, Sigma Books 1949
• The Newtonian Revolution - with illustrations of the transformation of scientific ideas , New York, Cambridge University Press, 1981, 1985, ISBN 0-521-22964-2
• Editor: Studies on William Harvey , New York, Arno Press, 1981, ISBN 0-405-13866-0
• Revolution in Science , Harvard University Press, 1985, ISBN 0-674-76777-2
• From Leonardo to Lavoisier, 1450-1800 , Scribner 1980, ISBN 0-684-15377-7
• Benjamin Franklin's Science , Harvard University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-674-06658-8
• Benjamin Franklin: Scientist and Statesman , New York, Scribner 1975
• Interactions: Some Contacts between the Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences , MIT Press 1994, ISBN 0-262-03223-6
• Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison , New York, Norton, 1995, ISBN 0-393-03501-8
• Editor with Richard Westfall : Newton: Texts, Backgrounds and Commentaries , Norton Critical Editions, 1995, ISBN 0-393-95902-3
• Howard Aiken : Portrait of a Computer Pioneer , MIT Press (Series: History of Computing), 1999 ISBN 0-262-03262-7
• with Alexandre Koyré , Anne Whitman Edited by Isaac Newton: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica , Harvard University Press 1972 (916 pages)
• Translator (with Anne Whitman) and editor of Isaac Newton The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy , 1999, ISBN 0-520-08816-6
• Introduction to Newton's Principia , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, 1999, ISBN 1-58348-601-1
• Editor: Isaac Newton's papers & letters on natural philosophy and related documents , Harvard University Press 1978
• Editor with Jed Buchwald : Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy , MIT Press 2000, ISBN 0-262-02477-2
• Editor with George E. Smith: The Cambridge Companion to Newton , Cambridge University Press 2002, ISBN 0-521-65177-8
• The Triumph of Numbers: How Counting Shaped Modern Life , W. Norton, 2005, ISBN 0-393-05769-0

Individual evidence

1. ^ Member History: I. Bernard Cohen. American Philosophical Society, accessed June 24, 2018 .