John David North

John David North (born May 19, 1934 in Cheltenham , † October 31, 2008 ) was a British historian of science.

life and work

North grew up in Yorkshire and studied mathematics and later philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University (Merton College). He was then initially a teacher, but also obtained external degrees in mathematics, physics and astronomy from the University of London . He taught physics at Magdalene College School, Oxford, and conducted research in the history of science at Oxford University from 1963 to 1968 on a Nuffield Foundation grant. From 1968 he was librarian and curator (Assistant Curator) at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. At the same time, he was teaching history of science courses at Oxford University with his mentor and friend Alistair Cameron Crombie . In 1977 he became professor for the history of science and philosophy at the University of Groningen , where he stayed until his retirement in 1999. He was visiting professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main , the University of Aarhus , the Yale University , the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas at Austin . From 2003 until his death he was a Senior Research Associate at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford. He died of cancer diagnosed in 2005.

North was best known for a book on the history of cosmology that first appeared in 1965 (The Measure of the Universe) and emerged from his doctoral thesis. He also edited the writings of Richard von Wallingford and wrote his biography. In 1965 he had discovered a design for a very precise Wallingford clock at the Bodleian Library and as a curator at the Science Museum in Oxford he became one of the leading international experts on scientific instruments of the Middle Ages. He also wrote books about Stonehenge (in which he interpreted the facility as a winter solstice observation site), a history of astronomy, historical horoscopes, Geoffrey Chaucer's astronomical worldview, and Holbein's ambassador painting in the National Gallery . According to North, references in the painting indicated an exact date (4 p.m. on Good Friday, April 11, 1533), exactly 1500 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, which, according to North, is indicated in a small crucifix in the painting.

North was a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences , the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences , the Leopoldina and since 1992 a Fellow of the British Academy . He was secretary of the Académie Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences (from 1983 until his death as Honorary Permanent Secretary). In 1989 he received the Koyré Medal .

He had been married to Marion Pizzey since 1957 and had a son and two daughters.

Fonts

• The Measure of the Universe: a History of Modern Cosmology , Oxford, Clarendon Press 1965, Dover 1990
• Viewegs Geschichte der Astronomie und Kosmologie , Vieweg 1997 (English original: Cosmos, a revision and expansion of his Fontana History of Astronomy and Cosmology , 1994).
• Cosmos - An Illustrated History of Astronomy and Cosmology , University of Chicago Press 2008 (revised new edition of the Fontana History of Astronomy and Cosmology)
• The universal frame. Historical essays in astronomy, natural philosophy and scientific method , Hambledon Press 1989
• Horoscopes and History , Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts Volume 13, 1968
• Richard Wallingford: an edition of his writings , 3 volumes, Oxford University Press 1976
• Chaucer's Universe , Oxford, Clarendon Press 1988
• Stonehenge: Neolithic man and the cosmos , Harper and Collins 1996
• The Ambassadors' Secret: Holbein and the world of the Renaissance , Hambledon Press 2002
• God's Clockmaker: Richard of Wallingford and the invention of time , Hambledon Continuum 2006
• Isaac Newton , Oxford University Press 1967
• Editor with J. Roche: The light of nature: essays in the history and philosophy of science. Presented to Alistair Cameron Crombie , Dordrecht, Nijhoff 1985

literature

• Charles Burnett: John David North, 1934-2008 . In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellow of the British Academy . tape 11 , 2012, p. 493–499 ( online [PDF; accessed August 5, 2017]).

Web links

• Obituary in The Independent, Nov. 24, 2008