Johan Ludvig Heiberg (philologist)

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Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1918)

Johan Ludvig Heiberg (born November 27, 1854 in Aalborg , † January 4, 1928 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish mathematician and classical philologist . He is known for basic critical editions by Greek mathematicians such as Euclid 's Elements and Archimedes . In the course of time he published critical editions on almost the entire corpus of Greek mathematics, while before him there was only a satisfactory critical edition on Pappos (by Friedrich Hultsch ).

Life

Heiberg studied classical philology and mathematics and received his doctorate in Copenhagen in 1879 on Archimedes with the dissertation Quaestiones Archimedeae (which set standards for text criticism at Archimedes). He was initially a high school teacher and from 1884 to 1895 director of a high school. In the 1880s he led a movement for the teaching of Greek in Danish high schools. From 1896 to 1924 he was Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Copenhagen , where he did not limit himself to his specialty in mathematical history. In the academic year 1915/16 he was the rector of the university. In addition to his work at the university, he regularly taught ancient Greek in the Borgerdydskolen.

Heiberg is best known for his work on Archimedes, the edition of which he obtained from Teubner in Leipzig in 1880/81 in three volumes. He achieved fame in Constantinople in 1906 when he discovered that a long-known manuscript contained the text of a previously unknown work by Archimedes. In this work of the so-called Archimedes Palimpsest , Archimedes revealed his “mechanical” methods with which he made many of his geometrical discoveries. It originally came from the library of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and later in its Metochion in Istanbul. Heiberg learned of the existence of mathematical manuscripts through Hermann Schöne's reference to a catalog of Greek manuscripts in the Istanbul church library, which Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus had published in 1899. On two trips in 1906 and 1908 he was also able to take photographs of the manuscript. After the manuscript was long gone, it was auctioned in 1998 and is currently being studied using modern methods at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. The examination of the manuscript (in which he was supported by his friend the mathematician Hieronymus Zeuthen ) provided many new insights and also made it necessary to revise his Archimedes edition (published 1910 to 1915).

Heiberg also arranged editions of Ptolemy (1898 to 1907), Heron of Alexandria (1912 to 1914), Serenus von Antinoupolis (1898), the doctrine of conics by Apollonios von Perge (1891 to 1893), Theodosios of Bithynia (1927), the commentary by Simplikios on Aristotle De Caelo (1894) as well as the elements and other works of Euclid , (1883 to 1895), where he published the first critical edition of the elements , which was based on the manuscript discovered in the Vatican library by François Peyrard . In contrast, earlier editions were based on manuscripts that were part of the textual tradition of the elements established by Theon of Alexandria . Heiberg's text formed the basis for modern translations such as that of Thomas Heath and Clemens Thaer .

He also wrote for a larger audience about the culture of the Greeks, with a particular interest in the history of religion, and also contributed to other areas of the history of science (geometry, astronomy, mechanics, medicine, alchemy) and also to Byzantine philology. Out of his interest in medicine among the Greeks, the suggestion for the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum arose in 1907 , an international project based in Berlin. From 1901 he was involved in the publication of the works of Søren Kierkegaard . With Zeuthen he published the works of Paul Tannery , with whom both were friends. All three stand for the long prevailing interpretation of ancient Greek mathematics as geometric algebra (which Thomas Little Heath also advocated).

He dealt less with the mathematical content and its interpretation itself (in contrast to Zeuthen), his main focus was on the transmission of texts.

In 1904 Heiberg received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. In 1883 he became a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences.

He published in Danish, German, Greek, Latin and Arabic.

Fonts

  • History of mathematics and natural sciences in antiquity , Beck, Munich 1960 (reprint of Beck's 1925 edition)
  • Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Classical Antiquity , Leipzig, Teubner 1912 (English edition Oxford University Press, 1922)
  • Natural sciences, mathematics and medicine in classical antiquity , 2nd edition, Teubner, Leipzig 1920
  • Studies of literary history on Euclid , Teubner, Leipzig 1882
  • Contributions to the history of Georg Valla ’s and his library , Central Library for Libraries, Supplement 16, 1896
  • Italy. Spredte Studier og Rejseskitser , Gyldendalske Boghandel, Copenhagen 1904
  • Fra Hellas. Populaire Afhandlinger , Jesperson og Pios Forlag, Copenhagen 1920
  • Fra Hellas og Italy , 2 volumes, Copenhagen 1929
  • Exact science and medicine , in: Alfred Gercke, Eduard Norden, Introduction to Classical Studies, 1910

As editor:

  • Archimedes Opera Omnia. Cum commentariis Eutocii , 3 volumes, Stuttgart, Teubner 1972 (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, reprint of the 2nd edition, Teubner, Leipzig 1910–1915)
  • A new Archimedes manuscript, Hermes: Zeitschrift für Philologie, Volume 42, 1907, pp 235-303
    • English translation: Geometrical solutions derived from mechanics, a treatise of Archimedes, recently discovered and translated from the Greek by Dr. JL Heiberg , Chicago, the Open Court Publishing Company 1909 (introduced by David Eugene Smith )
    • The method of Archimedes - recently discovered by Heiberg. A supplement to the works of Archimedes 1897 , edited by Thomas L. Heath, Cambridge University Press 1912
  • Euclidis Opera omnia , Leipzig, Teubner, 9 volumes, 1883 to 1916 (including the elements in 5 volumes 1883–1888), with Heinrich Quantity
    • German translation of the elements by Clemens Thaer based on Heiberg's edition, Leipzig, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft 1933 to 1937, 5 volumes and Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1969
    • English translation of the elements from the Heiberg edition by Thomas L. Heath, Cambridge University Press, 1908, 2nd edition 1926
  • Euclid Elementa , 2 volumes, Leipzig, Teubner, 2nd edition 1969, 1970 (edited by ES Stamatis)
  • with RO Besthorn: Codex Leidensis 399, I. Euclidis Elementa ex interpretatione al-Hajjadschii cum commentariis al-Narizii , three parts, Copenhagen 1893-1932
  • Apollonii Pergaei quae Graece exstant cum commentariis antiquis , 2 volumes, Teubner 1974 (reprint of the edition by Teubner 1891/93)
  • Claudius Ptolemäus Claudii Ptolemaei Opera quae exstant omnia , Leipzig, Teubner 1898 to 1919
  • Heron from Alexandria Opera quae supersunt omnia , 5 volumes, Leipzig, from 1899
  • Mathematici Graeci minores , Det Kgl. Danske Vid. Selsk., Historisk-filologiske meddelesler, Volume 13, No. 3, Copenhagen, 1927
  • Serenus von Antinoupolis , Sereni Antinoensis Opuscula , Leipzig, Teubner 1892
  • Paulos from Aigina Libri tertii interpretatio latina antiqua , Leipzig, Teubner 1912
  • Paul Aegineta. I – II, Leipzig and Berlin 1921–1924 (= Corpus medicorum graecorum , IX, 1–2)
  • Paul Tannery Memoires scientifique , Toulouse 1912 (publisher with Hieronymus Georg Zeuthen )
  • Editor with AB Drachmann, HO Lange, Collected Works by Søren Kierkegaard , Copenhagen 1901 to 1906, and 1920 to 1931

literature

  • Hans Ræder : Johan Ludvig Heiberg. 27/11 1854-4 / 1 1928. In: Isis . Volume 11, 1928, pp. 367-374.
  • Antonia Wenzel: Heiberg, Johan Ludvig. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 541 f.
  • Christian Marinus Taisbak: Johan Ludvig Heiberg , in: Joseph W. Dauben , Christoph J. Scriba (eds.): Writing the history of mathematics , Birkhäuser 2002, pp. 442–444
  • Carsten Høeg: Johan Ludvig Heiberg , Annual Report on the Advances in Classical Classical Studies, Volume 233 (1931), 1933–34, pp. 38–77
  • Esbern Spang-Hansen: Filologen JL Heiberg , Copenhagen 1929, 2nd edition 1969
  • Klaus Alpers: Classical Philology in Byzantium , Class. Phil., Vol. 83, 1988, pp. 342-360

Web links

Commons : Johan Ludvig Heiberg (philologist)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ^ Dauben, Scriba, Writing the History of Mathematics, p. 443
  2. ↑ There was a further reference in Konstantin von Tischendorf's Reise in den Orient , Leipzig 1846, who had brought a sheet of the manuscript to Europe in the 1840s and sold it to Cambridge University in 1876 .
personal data
SURNAME Heiberg, Johan Ludvig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish mathematician and philologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Aalborg , Denmark
DATE OF DEATH January 4, 1928
Place of death Copenhagen , Denmark