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I. Bernard Cohen
I. Bernard Cohen (1 March 1914 – 20 June 2003) was an American historian of science. He taught at Harvard University for 60 years, 1942–2002, becoming the first chair of its Department of the History of Science when it was established in 1966. He mentored notable students including George Basalla, Lorraine Daston, and Allen G. Debus. He was the author of many books on the history of science and, in particular, on Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Howard H. Aiken. He made a full English translation of Newton's Principia Mathematica and was the second chief editor of the history of science journal Isis.
I. Bernard Cohen was born 1 March 1914 in Far Rockaway, New York City, to Isadore and Blanche Cohen; he had one older sister, Harriet. His father died just before Cohen's bar mitzvah at age 12, and Cohen became unmotivated and spent the next years performing unremarkably in schools and early jobs; he attended Columbia Grammar School through 1929 and then spent one semester at New York University before transferring to Farmingdale Agricultural Institute on Long Island for veterinary medicine. This also did not work out, so he returned to New York University but then dropped out and became a Prohibition rum runner while living with relatives in Connecticut. After nearly being shot while unloading rum, he enrolled in Valley Forge Military Academy and began to take his studies more seriously. He graduated at the top of his class in 1933.
Cohen next attended Harvard University, where he intended to become a theoretical or mathematical chemical physicist and became a protege of George D. Birkhoff. He graduated in 1937 with a BSc in mathematics and honors in history, with an undergraduate thesis "The Billiard Ball Problem and the Recurrence Property of Dynamical Systems" advised by Birkhoff. He moved directly into Harvard's new PhD program in the history of science, the first in the US, and became the first American to receive a PhD in the history of science in 1947.
In this time, Cohen worked closely with historian of science George Sarton, founder of the History of Science Society and founder of the journal Isis, becoming his personal assistant 1938–1941. In 1941, petitioning Harvard president James B. Conant to support Cohen in a teaching position, Sarton wrote Cohen was "the best disciple I have had thus far out of a selected group of about a thousand men. He is also the only one whom I could train completely, and his preparation for work in my field is as good as could be from every point of view, scientific, philosophic, historical, and linguistic." Teaching duties beginning 1942 and secret work for the US in World War II 1942–1943 took his attention off his dissertation research for years, and in the end his final thesis in 1947 was his already-published 1941 edited volume Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments: A New Edition of Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Edited, with a Critical and Historical Introduction.
Cohen taught at Harvard from 1942 through his retirement emeritus in 1984, then at the Harvard Extension School and many visiting positions, until his hospitalization for terminal illness in 2002. He was the first chairman of Harvard's Department of the History of Science and he rose to the position of Victor S. Thomas Professor of the History of Science at Harvard in 1977. During his tenure, he developed Harvard's general education program and its program in the history of science.
Cohen succeeded George Sarton as editor of Isis (1952–1958) and later served as president of the History of Science Society (1961–1962). Cohen was also a president of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science 1968–1971. In 1973 he gave three lectures for the A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography. In 1974, he was awarded the Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society. He was awarded the 1986 Pfizer Award for his book Revolutions in Science. He became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1952 and of the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Cohen's scholarship ranged from science and public policy to the history of computers, with particular concentrations in the study of Isaac Newton and early American science and several decades as a special consultant for history of computing with IBM. He published over 150 articles and over twenty books. The books included Franklin and Newton (1956), The Birth of a New Physics (1960), The Newtonian Revolution (1980), Revolution in Science (1985), Science and the Founding Fathers (1995), Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer (1999), and The Triumph of Numbers (2005). He considered his work editing and translating Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica to be his most important.
Cohen began teaching at Harvard in 1942 as a teaching fellow and then an instructor in physics, while still a graduate student. He received tenure in 1953 and became the first chairman of Harvard's Department of the History of Science when it was established in 1966. He became Victor S. Thomas Professor of the History of Science at Harvard in 1977 and retired emeritus in 1984.
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I. Bernard Cohen
I. Bernard Cohen (1 March 1914 – 20 June 2003) was an American historian of science. He taught at Harvard University for 60 years, 1942–2002, becoming the first chair of its Department of the History of Science when it was established in 1966. He mentored notable students including George Basalla, Lorraine Daston, and Allen G. Debus. He was the author of many books on the history of science and, in particular, on Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Howard H. Aiken. He made a full English translation of Newton's Principia Mathematica and was the second chief editor of the history of science journal Isis.
I. Bernard Cohen was born 1 March 1914 in Far Rockaway, New York City, to Isadore and Blanche Cohen; he had one older sister, Harriet. His father died just before Cohen's bar mitzvah at age 12, and Cohen became unmotivated and spent the next years performing unremarkably in schools and early jobs; he attended Columbia Grammar School through 1929 and then spent one semester at New York University before transferring to Farmingdale Agricultural Institute on Long Island for veterinary medicine. This also did not work out, so he returned to New York University but then dropped out and became a Prohibition rum runner while living with relatives in Connecticut. After nearly being shot while unloading rum, he enrolled in Valley Forge Military Academy and began to take his studies more seriously. He graduated at the top of his class in 1933.
Cohen next attended Harvard University, where he intended to become a theoretical or mathematical chemical physicist and became a protege of George D. Birkhoff. He graduated in 1937 with a BSc in mathematics and honors in history, with an undergraduate thesis "The Billiard Ball Problem and the Recurrence Property of Dynamical Systems" advised by Birkhoff. He moved directly into Harvard's new PhD program in the history of science, the first in the US, and became the first American to receive a PhD in the history of science in 1947.
In this time, Cohen worked closely with historian of science George Sarton, founder of the History of Science Society and founder of the journal Isis, becoming his personal assistant 1938–1941. In 1941, petitioning Harvard president James B. Conant to support Cohen in a teaching position, Sarton wrote Cohen was "the best disciple I have had thus far out of a selected group of about a thousand men. He is also the only one whom I could train completely, and his preparation for work in my field is as good as could be from every point of view, scientific, philosophic, historical, and linguistic." Teaching duties beginning 1942 and secret work for the US in World War II 1942–1943 took his attention off his dissertation research for years, and in the end his final thesis in 1947 was his already-published 1941 edited volume Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments: A New Edition of Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Edited, with a Critical and Historical Introduction.
Cohen taught at Harvard from 1942 through his retirement emeritus in 1984, then at the Harvard Extension School and many visiting positions, until his hospitalization for terminal illness in 2002. He was the first chairman of Harvard's Department of the History of Science and he rose to the position of Victor S. Thomas Professor of the History of Science at Harvard in 1977. During his tenure, he developed Harvard's general education program and its program in the history of science.
Cohen succeeded George Sarton as editor of Isis (1952–1958) and later served as president of the History of Science Society (1961–1962). Cohen was also a president of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science 1968–1971. In 1973 he gave three lectures for the A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography. In 1974, he was awarded the Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society. He was awarded the 1986 Pfizer Award for his book Revolutions in Science. He became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1952 and of the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Cohen's scholarship ranged from science and public policy to the history of computers, with particular concentrations in the study of Isaac Newton and early American science and several decades as a special consultant for history of computing with IBM. He published over 150 articles and over twenty books. The books included Franklin and Newton (1956), The Birth of a New Physics (1960), The Newtonian Revolution (1980), Revolution in Science (1985), Science and the Founding Fathers (1995), Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer (1999), and The Triumph of Numbers (2005). He considered his work editing and translating Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica to be his most important.
Cohen began teaching at Harvard in 1942 as a teaching fellow and then an instructor in physics, while still a graduate student. He received tenure in 1953 and became the first chairman of Harvard's Department of the History of Science when it was established in 1966. He became Victor S. Thomas Professor of the History of Science at Harvard in 1977 and retired emeritus in 1984.