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Jacob Bronowski
Sign in to savePolish-born British mathematician (1908–1974)
OverviewAI-generated
Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) was a British mathematician, poet, historian, and philosopher. Born in Łódź, he was educated at the University of Cambridge and Jesus College, where his doctoral advisor was H. F. Baker. His fields of work included mathematics, biology, and the history of science. He served as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and held positions at the University of Hull, UNESCO, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Bronowski participated in World War II and resided in the United Kingdom. He died of a myocardial infarction in East Hampton and is buried at Highgate Cemetery. His daughter is Lisa Jardine. Among his works are *Science and Conscience*, *The dilemma of the scientist*, *Lessons of science*, and *For Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands*.
Synthesized by Vinony from 39 facts across 9 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Wikiquote, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Born
- 1908
- Died
- 1974
- Works
- 56
Top works
- ʻUrūj-i insān
- Science and Conscience
- The dilemma of the scientist
- Lessons of science
- For Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands
via Open Library + Wikidata
Film & TV
Acting
Known for
- Parkinson at 50 — Self (archive footage)2021
- The Ascent of Man — Self - Presenter1973
via TMDB
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 23
- Total plays
- 185
<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Jacob+Bronowski">Read more on Last.fm</a>
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
- A power primer.
· 1992 · cited 41,579x
- SciPy 1.0: fundamental algorithms for scientific computing in Python
· 2020 · cited 36,538x
- A Coefficient of Agreement for Nominal Scales
· 1960 · cited 31,957x
- A global reference for human genetic variation
· 2015 · cited 17,790x
- Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences
· 2013 · cited 16,968x
via Crossref · CC0
Quotes
- “These are the moments when the powerful mind or the forceful character feels the ferment of the times, when his thoughts quicken, and when he can inject into the uncertainties of others the creative ideas which will strengthen them with purpose. At such a moment the man who can direct others, in thought or in action, can remake the world.”
- “The air in a man's lungs contains 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms, so that sooner or later every one of us breathes an atom that has been breathed before by anyone you can think of who has ever lived — Michelangelo or George Washington or Moses.”
- “I grew up to be indifferent to the distinction between literature and science, which in my teens were simply two languages for experience that I learned together.”
- “It has been one of the most destructive modern prejudices that art and science are different and somehow incompatible interests. We have fallen into the habit of opposing the artistic to the scientific tempers; we even identify them with a creative and a critical approach.”
- “The sneer that science is only critical came from others. It was made by the timid and laboured artists of the nineties in order that they might by comparison appear to be creative and intuitive. Yet this finesse could not hide their own knowledge that the best minds were already being drawn to the more adventurous practice of the new sciences.”
- “Science is not a special sense. It is as wide as the literal meaning of its name: knowledge.”
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1908-01-18 ) 18 January 1908, Łódź , Congress Poland , Russian Empire
- Died
- 22 August 1974 (1974-08-22) (aged 66), East Hampton, New York , U.S.
- Resting place
- Highgate Cemetery , London, England
- Alma mater
- Jesus College
- Known for
- The Ascent of Man
- Spouse
- Rita Coblentz ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1941 )
- Children
- 4, including Lisa Jardine
- Awards
- Senior wrangler ( Cambridge )
- Fields
- Mathematics , operations research , biology , history of science , geometry
- Institutions
- Salk Institute
- Doctoral advisor
- Henry F. Baker
via Wikipedia infobox
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Jacob Bronowski (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher. He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to science, and as the presenter and writer of the thirteen-part 1973 BBC television documentary series, and accompanying book, The Ascent of Man. He was widely regarded as "one of the most revered intellectuals on the global stage."
Bronowski's family moved from Congress Poland to Germany and then to England in 1920, when he was 12 years old. He won a scholarship to study mathematics at the University of Cambridge. His interests have been described as ranging "widely, from biology to poetry and from chess to Humanism". He taught mathematics at University College Hull between 1934 and 1942. During World War II he led the field of operations research and worked to increase the effectiveness of Allied bombing.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Jacob Bronowski” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.