Asger Hartvig Aaboe (26 April 1922 – 19 January 2007) was a Danish historian of the exact sciences and

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

who was best known for his contributions to the history of ancient

Babylonian astronomy Babylonian astronomy was the study or recording of celestial objects during the early history of Mesopotamia. The numeral system used, sexagesimal, was based on 60, as opposed to ten in the modern decimal system. This system simplified the ca ...

. In his studies of Babylonian astronomy, he went beyond analyses in terms of modern mathematics to seek to understand how the Babylonians conceived their computational schemes. Aaboe studied mathematics and astronomy at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

, and in 1957 obtained a PhD in the

History of Science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...

from

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

, where he studied under

Otto Neugebauer Otto Eduard Neugebauer (May 26, 1899 – February 19, 1990) was an Austrian-American mathematician and historian of science who became known for his research on the history of astronomy and the other exact sciences as they were practiced in an ...

, writing a dissertation "On Babylonian Planetary Theories". In 1961, he joined the Department of the History of Science and Medicine at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, serving as chair from 1968 to 1971, and continuing an active career there until retiring in 1992. At Yale, his doctoral students included

Alice Slotsky Alice Louise Slotsky (née Weisfeld) was an American historian of mathematics and Assyriologist known for her studies of Babylonian mathematics and Babylonian accounting and for her popular courses at Brown University on the Akkadian language. E ...

and

Noel Swerdlow Noel Mark Swerdlow (9 September 1941 – 24 July 2021) was a professor emeritus of history, astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology. Career Swerdlow specia ...

. He was elected to the

Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters ({{Langx, da, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab or ''Videnskabernes Selskab'') is a Danish academy of science. The Royal Danish Academy was established on 13 November 1742, and was create ...

in 1975, served as president of the

Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences is a learned society founded in 1799 in New Haven, Connecticut "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest and happiness of a free and virtuous people." Its purpose is the ...

from 1970 to 1980, and was a member of many other scholarly societies. In 1987, a festschrift was published in honor of Asger Aaboe's 65th birthday. Aaboe married Joan Armstrong on 14 July 1950. The marriage produced four children: Kirsten Aaboe, Erik Harris Aaboe, Anne Aaboe, Niels Peter Aaboe.

Selected publications

* ''Episodes from the Early History of Mathematics'', New York: Random House, 1964. ** * "Scientific Astronomy in Antiquity", ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London'', A.276, (1974: 21–42). * "Mesopotamian Mathematics, Astronomy, and Astrology", ''The Cambridge Ancient History'' (2nd. ed.), Vol. III, part 2, chap. 28b, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991,
chapter summary
* ''Episodes from the Early History of Astronomy'', New York: Springer, 2001, , **

Notes

References

*
Len Berggren, Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University
* (John P. Britton's Ph.D. thesis was supervised by Asger Aaboe and Bernard R. Goldstein. See: ) * * *
John M. Steele, Charles Edwin Wilbour Professor of Egyptology and Assyriology, Brown U.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aaboe, Asger 1922 births 2007 deaths 20th-century Danish mathematicians 21st-century Danish mathematicians Historians of science Danish historians of mathematics Historians of astronomy Danish expatriates in the United States University of Copenhagen alumni Brown University Graduate School alumni Yale University faculty