Career
Høyrup studied physics and mathematics at the University of Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute from 1962 to 1969 (also, in 1965/66, at the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris), with a focus on theoretical physics. In 1969 he completed his studies (as Danish ''cand. Scient.'') with a thesis on theoretical elementary particle physics and was assistant lecturer (Danish ''adjunkt'') in physics at the Danish Academy for Engineering from 1971 to 1973. Starting in 1973 he was senior lecturer (Danish ''lektor'') and in 1989 reader (Danish ''docent'') for the history and philosophy of science at Roskilde University, most recently in the Section for Philosophy and Science Studies. In 1995 heScholarship
Høyrup is an internationally acclaimed expert in the history of mathematics, especially Babylonian mathematics. His research is wide-ranging, and also includes studies of Greek, Latin, Chinese, medieval Islamic and European, and modern mathematics. He is interested in philosophical and sociological questions about mathematics and the history of science. For example, he argues that early Babylonian arithmetic emerged from the process of state formation. He has also written about mathematics and war. More recently, he has studied the early Italian abacus tradition, arguing that its origins lie prior to Fibonacci's ''Liber Abacci'' and "that it is much less directly influenced by the scholarly level of Arabic mathematics than generally thought." In the 1980s, Høyrup began a reanalysis of Old Babylonian "algebra", based on a close inspection of Babylonian arithmetical terminology. He pioneered the use of "conformal translation" in this context, thereby preserving the distinctions between different conceptions of what had been regarded as equivalent mathematical operations. He concluded, for example, the Babylonian mathematics includes two different additions and at least four different multiplications, and that these distinct operations corresponded to distinct cut-and-paste geometric operations with origins in the practical surveyor tradition. Using this foundation, it became possible to understand texts that had previously been regarded as consisting of algebraic manipulations of abstract quantities as series of concrete operations on geometric figures. For example, in Høyrup's reading, texts describing the process of completing the square are seen as instructions for cutting and pasting rectangular areas to form a square.Selected works
* , * * * editor with Bernhelm Booss-Bavnbek: ''Mathematics and War'', Birkhäuser 2003, doi:10.1007/978-3-0348-8093-0Family
Jens Høyrup is the son of Hans Egede Høyrup and Sonja Hedeager. He has two daughters from his previous marriage. He was later in a long relationship with the Italian professor Ludovika Koch.References
External links
* Jens Høyrup'