Michael J. Crowe (born 1936) is Rev.

John J. Cavanaugh John Joseph Cavanaugh, C.S.C. (January 23, 1899 – December 28, 1979), was an American Catholic priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross who served from 1946 to 1952 as the 14th president of the University of Notre Dame, having previously ser ...

Professor Emeritus in the Program of Liberal Studies and Graduate Program in History and Philosophy of Science at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...

. He is best known for writing the influential book ''

A History of Vector Analysis ''A History of Vector Analysis'' (1967) is a book on the history of vector analysis by Michael J. Crowe, originally published by the University of Notre Dame Press. As a scholarly treatment of a reformation in technical communication, the text i ...

''. After the ''Great Vector Debate'' of the 1890s it was generally assumed that

quaternions In mathematics, the quaternion number system extends the complex numbers. Quaternions were first described by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843 and applied to mechanics in three-dimensional space. The algebra of quaternion ...

had been superseded by

vector analysis Vector calculus or vector analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with the differentiation and integration of vector fields, primarily in three-dimensional Euclidean space, \mathbb^3. The term ''vector calculus'' is sometimes used as a ...

. But in his book, published in 1967, Crowe showed how, contrarily, vector analysis directly stemmed from the quaternions. In 1994 a new edition was published.

Education and career

Crowe earned a BA in the Program of Liberal Studies and a BS in Science from the

in 1958. He earned a PhD in the History of Science (with minors in Physics and Intellectual History) from the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

in 1965. His doctoral dissertation was ''The History of the Idea of a Vectorial System to 1910'', which was published as the book ''A History of Vector Analysis'' two years later. Thereafter Crowe wrote on various topics, from the history of physics and astronomy, to the Gestalt shifts in the

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...

stories by

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

. Crowe's book about the history of the

extraterrestrial life Extraterrestrial life, or alien life (colloquially, aliens), is life that originates from another world rather than on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been scientifically conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms ...

debate was highly praised, and was followed by a companion source book in 2008.

Honors

In 2010 Crowe was awarded the LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy by the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

.Michael J. Crowe Awarded the 2010 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize
by Sara J. Schechner, Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society

Bibliography

* 1994
A History of Vector Analysis : The Evolution of the Idea of a Vectorial System
' by Michael J. Crowe, Dover Publications, Inc. New York. 1st ed. 1967, Univ. of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame. * 1994
Modern theories of the universe: from Herschel to Hubble
' by Michael J. Crowe, New York: Dover Publications. * 1999
The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900
' by Michael J. Crowe, Dover Publications, 1st ed. 1986, Cambridge University Press. *2008
The Extraterrestrial Life Debate: Antiquity to 1915
' by Michael J. Crowe, University of Notre Dame Press. *2018
The Gestalt Shift in Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories
', by Michael J. Crowe, Cham, Palgrave MacMillan.

References

External links

Official home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crowe, Michael J. Historians of mathematics 20th-century American historians University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni University of Notre Dame alumni Alumni of the University of Cambridge 1936 births Living people