Lancelot Hogben

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Lancelot Thomas Hogben (born December 9, 1895 in Portsmouth , †  August 22, 1975 in Wrexham ) was an English zoologist , geneticist , statistician and writer. Hogben is best known to the general public as the author of popular science books , particularly through his two bestsellers Mathematics for the Million (1936) and Science for the Citizen (1938). Under the title Mathematik für alle , the German edition of Mathematics for the Million also developed into a bestseller after the Second World War .

Life

Lancelot Hogben was in Portsmouth and grew up first in Southsea in the county of Hampshire on. Later, when his family moved, he went to school in London. He studied medicine at Trinity College of Cambridge University and graduated in 1915 from. His parents were members of the Plymouth Brethren , a conservative branch of the Brethren movement . However, Hogben broke with his family's religious views and adopted socialist and pacifist beliefs. During his time in Cambridge he was a member of the Fabian Society and later the Independent Labor Party . In World War I he worked for six months at the British Red Cross in France and then as a conscientious objector (Engl. Conscientious objector) detained. After a collapse in health, he was released from prison in 1917 and after a year of rehabilitation he worked as a lecturer in London. In 1917 he married statistician and feminist Enid Charles . In 1922 he took a position as a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh , then moved to McGill University and finally took over the chair of zoology at the University of Cape Town in 1927 . 1930 returned to England and received the Chair of Social Biology at the London School of Economics , which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation . In 1923 he became a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1936 of the Royal Society of London . When the Rockefeller Foundation in 1937 stopped the financing of his chair, he became Regius Professor of Natural History ( Natural History ) at the University of Aberdeen . He later moved to the University of Birmingham , where he first worked as a professor of zoology (1941-1947) and then until his retirement in 1961 as a professor of medical statistics. After his marriage to Enid Charles, who had 4 children, divorced in 1957, he later married Sarah Jane Roberts. In 1963 he became vice chancellor and mathematician at the newly founded University of Guyana in Georgetown .

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Hogben's contributions to biology include investigations into the mechanisms of color change in amphibians and reptiles. He also studied the effects of hormones on reproductive and pregnancy cycles in vertebrates. His results were important for the later development of hormone-based contraceptives and pregnancy tests. He carried out his investigations mainly on the clawed frog ( Xenopus laevis ).

Together with Julian Huxley and the geneticist Francis Albert Eley Crew , he founded the Society for Experimental Biology and its journal Journal of Experimental Biology in 1923 , which was published jointly with Cambridge University Press .

In addition to several specialist books, he also published popular science books that were widely distributed, most notably the two international bestsellers Mathematics for the Million (1936) and Science for the Citizen (1938).

Math for everyone

Mathematics for the Million is a 600-page book on mathematics published in 1936. His German translation was published in 1953 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch under the title Mathematik für alle. An introduction to the science of numbers and figures . It became a worldwide bestseller and continues to be published commercially even after 70 years. The Fields Medals award winner David Mumford called it in an interview once as the book that had originally inspired him for mathematics.

The book contains elements of both a popular science book and a textbook. It differs from a popular science book mainly in that it is not a predominantly literary description of mathematics, but actually conveys detailed mathematical content. As usual in textbooks, each chapter contains tasks for the reader as well as their solutions for self-control. The reader not only learns about math, but also learns math himself.

However, it differs from a normal textbook in terms of the choice of material and structure. The mathematical content is not structured according to a logical structure based purely on the mathematical context, but according to its historical origin. The book follows the historical development of mathematics, developing its mathematical content from concrete historical problems and also placing them in a cultural-historical context.

In terms of content, it deals with arithmetic , algebra , trigonometry , logarithms , series , differential and integral calculus , determinants , number theory , combinatorics and probability calculus . In its historical structure, it begins with the development of arithmetic in early antiquity and ends with the development of differential and integral calculus and probability calculus in the 18th century.

Publications

  • Exiles of the Snow, and Other Poems (1918)
  • An Introduction to Recent Advances in Comparative Physiology (1924) with Frank R. Winton
  • The Pigmentary Effector System. A review of the physiology of color response (1924)
  • Comparative Physiology (1926)
  • Comparative Physiology of Internal Secretion (1927)
  • The Nature of Living Matter (1930)
  • Genetic Principles in Medical and Social Science (1931)
  • Mathematics for the Million (1936). Newer German edition: Mathematics for everyone. An introduction to the science of numbers and figures. Pawlak 1985, ISBN 3-88199-208-1 ( onlike copy of the English edition on archive, org)
  • The Retreat from Reason (1936) Conway Memorial Lecture May 20, 1936
  • Science for the Citizen: A Self-Educator Based on the Social Background of Scientific Discovery (1938)
  • Political Arithmetic: A Symposium of Population Studies . (1938) ed.
  • Dangerous Thoughts (1939)
  • Author in Transit (1940)
  • Principles of Animal Biology (1940)
  • Interglossa: A Draft of an Auxiliary for a Democratic world order, Being an Attempt to Apply Semantic Principles to Language Design (1943)
  • The Loom of Language by Frederick Bodmer (1944) editor
  • An Introduction to Mathematical Genetics (1946)
  • History of the Homeland The Story of the British Background: by Henry Hamilton (1947) editor, No. 4 of Primers for the Age of Plenty
  • From Cave Painting To Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope of Human Communication (1949)
  • Chance and Choice by Cardpack and Chessboard (1950)
  • Man Must Measure: The Wonderful World of Mathematics (1955)
  • Statistical theory. The relationship of probability, credibility and error. An examination of the contemporary crisis in statistical theory from a behaviorist viewpoint (1957)
  • The Wonderful World Of Energy (1957)
  • The Signs of Civilization (1959)
  • The Wonderful World Of Communication (1959)
  • Mathematics In The Making (1961)
  • Essential World English (1963) with Jane Hogben and Maureen Cartwright
  • Science in Authority: Essays (1963)
  • The Mother Tongue (1965)
  • Whales for the Welsh - A Tale of War and Peace with Notes for those who Teach or Preach (1967)
  • Beginnings and Blunders or Before Science Began (1970)
  • The Vocabulary Of Science (1970) with Maureen Cartwright
  • Astronomer Priest and Ancient Mariner (1972)
  • Maps, Mirrors and Mechanics (1973)
  • Columbus, the Cannon Ball and the Common Pump (1974)
  • How The World Was Explored , ed. With Marie Neurath and JA Lauwerys
  • Lancelot Hogben: Scientific Humanist (1998). Autobiography, ed. by Adrian Hogben and Anne Hogben

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed December 20, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Sahotra Sarkar (1995); Perspectives - Anecdotal, Historical And Critical Commentaries on Genetics ; Eds. James F. Crow and William F. Dove; accessed on August 5, 2014.
  3. ^ David Mumford: Scientists' Nightstand . American Scientist . Retrieved May 4, 2013: “ If the nonscientist really wants to read some math, the book that drew me into math was the classic Mathematics for the Million, by Lancelot Hogben (1936). It is never outdated. "
personal data
SURNAME Hogben, Lancelot
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hogben, Lancelot Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English zoologist, geneticist, statistician and writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Portsmouth
DATE OF DEATH 22nd August 1975
Place of death Wrexham