Hendrik Jan Maarten "Henk" Bos (born 17 July 1940,

Enschede Enschede (; known as in the local Twents dialect) is a municipality and city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Overijssel and in the Twente region. The eastern parts of the urban area reaches the border of the German city of Gronau ...

) is a Dutch

historian of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments ...

Career

Hendrik was a student of

Hans Freudenthal Hans Freudenthal (17 September 1905 – 13 October 1990) was a Jewish-German-born Dutch mathematician. He made substantial contributions to algebraic topology and also took an interest in literature, philosophy, history and mathematics education ...

and

Jerome Ravetz Jerome (Jerry) Ravetz is a philosopher of science. He is best known for his books analysing scientific knowledge from a social and ethical perspective, focussing on issues of quality. He is the co-author (with Silvio Funtowicz) of the NUSAP ...

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

and in 1973 wrote a thesis "Differentials, higher order differentials, and the derivative in the Leibnizian calculus" for his doctorate. Bos worked at Utrecht University for most of his career. In 1985 he became

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

history of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments ...

. He took an interest in the

tractrix In geometry, a tractrix (; plural: tractrices) is the curve along which an object moves, under the influence of friction, when pulled on a horizontal plane by a line segment attached to a pulling point (the ''tractor'') that moves at a right angl ...

as a mathematical stimulus. Bos retired in 2005. Since his retirement he has been honorary professor of the history of mathematics at the Faculty of Science at the

University of Aarhus Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...

. He is married to

Kirsti Andersen Kirsti Andersen (born December 9, 1941, Copenhagen), published under the name Kirsti Pedersen, is a Danish historian of mathematics. She is an Associate Professor of the History of Science at Aarhus University, where she had her Candidate exami ...

. At his Valedictory Symposium when he retired, Henk spoke on fluid concepts in mathematics in a talk titled "Loose Ends". He was awarded the Kenneth O. May Medal for 2005.

Selected publications

Bos has contributed to the study of the mathematical works of the seventeenth-century philosopher

René Descartes René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathem ...

, including Descartes’ contribution to the development of

algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary a ...

and

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

. * 1974: "Differentials, higher-order differentials and the derivative in the Leibnizian calculus",

Archive for History of Exact Sciences ''Archive for History of Exact Sciences'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal currently published bimonthly by Springer Science+Business Media, covering the history of mathematics and of astronomy observations and techniques, epistemology of scienc ...

14: 1–90, * 1980: "Newton, Leibnitz and the Leibnizian tradition", chapter 2, pages 49–93, in ''From the Calculus to Set Theory, 1630 – 1910: An Introductory History'', edited by

Ivor Grattan-Guinness Ivor Owen Grattan-Guinness (23 June 1941 – 12 December 2014) was a historian of mathematics and logic. Life Grattan-Guinness was born in Bakewell, England; his father was a mathematics teacher and educational administrator. He gained his bac ...

Duckworth Duckworth may refer to: * Duckworth (surname), people with the surname ''Duckworth'' * Duckworth (''DuckTales''), fictional butler from the television series ''DuckTales'' * Duckworth Books, a British publishing house * , a frigate * Duckworth, W ...

* 1981: (with Herbert Mehrtens & Ivo Schneider) "Mathematics and Revolution from Lacroix to Cauchy", pages 50–71 in ''Social History of Nineteenth Century Mathematics'',

Birkhäuser Birkhäuser was a Swiss publisher founded in 1879 by Emil Birkhäuser. It was acquired by Springer Science+Business Media in 1985. Today it is an imprint used by two companies in unrelated fields: * Springer continues to publish science (particu ...

* 1984: "The closure theorem of Poncelet", Rend. Sem. Mat. Fis. Milano 54, 145–158 (1987). * 1987: (with Kers, C.; Oort, F.; Raven, D. W.) "

Poncelet's closure theorem In geometry, Poncelet's closure theorem, also known as Poncelet's porism, states that whenever a polygon is inscribed in one conic section and circumscribes another one, the polygon must be part of an infinite family of polygons that are all i ...

", Exposition. Math. 5 no. 4, 289–364. :: Joseph Harris wrote for

Mathematical Reviews ''Mathematical Reviews'' is a journal published by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) that contains brief synopses, and in some cases evaluations, of many articles in mathematics, statistics, and theoretical computer science. The AMS also pu ...

, "The authors trace very carefully the history of the problem, describing various approaches culminating in a modern proof. The paper is fascinating from both a historical and a mathematical point of view, and should serve as the definitive source of information about Poncelet's problem in the future"
here
* 1993: ''Lectures in the History of Mathematics'', History of Mathematics #7,

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh Mathematical S ...

* 2001: ''Redefining Geometrical Exactness. Descartes' transformation of the early modern concept of construction'', Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Springer-Verlag, New York. * 2012
Huygens, Christiaan (Also Huyghens, Christian)
''Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography'',

Encyclopedia.com Encyclopedia.com (also known as HighBeam Encyclopedia) is an online encyclopedia. It aggregates information from other published dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference works including pictures and videos. History The website was launched by ...

References

External links

University of Aarhus Staff155 Notes on Contributors
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bos, Henk J. M. 1940 births Living people 20th-century Dutch historians Historians of mathematics Utrecht University faculty Utrecht University alumni People from Enschede 21st-century Dutch historians