Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
5640 S. Ellis Ave.
Chicago, IL 60637
Fax: (773) 702-8212
Office: (773) 702-7969
Email: nms@oddjob.uchicago.edu
Retiring after Spring 2008
FIELD SPECIALTIES
History of the Exact Sciences, Antiquity through the Seventeenth Century; History of Astronomy
BIOGRAPHY
Noel Swerdlow's research is concerned with the history of the exact science, astronomy in particular, from antiquity through the seventeenth century. His most recently completed larger project concerns Babylonian planetary theory and he is now working on a study of astronomy in the Renaissance concentrating on Regiomontanus, Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler, and Galileo. His teaching covers the history of the physical sciences in general.
PUBLICATIONS
"Science and Humanism in the Renaissance: Regiomontanus's Oration onthe Dignity and Utility of the Mathematical Sciences." World Changes.Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science, ed. P. Horwich, MIT Press (1993),131-68.
"The Recovery of the Exact Sciences of Antiquity: Mathematics, Astronomy,Geography." Rome Reborn. The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture,ed. A. Grafton, The Library of Congress, Yale University Press (1993), 125-67.
"Otto E. Neugebauer." Proceedings of the American PhilosophicalSociety 137 (1993), 139-65.
"Montucla's Legacy: The History of the Exact Sciences." Journalof the History of Ideas (1993), 299-328.
"Blackstone's "Newtonian" Dissent." The Natural Sciencesand the Social Sciences, ed. I.B. Cohen, Kluwer Academic Publishers(1994), 205-34.
"Astronomy in the Renaissance." Astronomy before the Telescope,ed. C. Walker, British Museum Press (1996), 187-229.
The Babylonian Theory of the Planets. Princeton University Press,1998.