Hendrik Jan Maarten "Henk" Bos (17 July 1940 – 12 February 2024) was a Dutch

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

Life and career

Hendrik Jan Maarten Bos was born in

Enschede Enschede (; local ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the province of Overijssel and the Twente region of the eastern Netherlands. The east of the urban area reaches ...

on 17 July 1940. Bos was a student of

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

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, focusing on issues of quality. He is the co-author (with Silvio Funtowicz) of the NUSAP no ...

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public university, public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of ...

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 tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

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

. Bos 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 was honorary professor of the history of mathematics at the Faculty of Science at the

University of Aarhus Aarhus University (, abbreviated AU) is a public research university. Its main campus is located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Group, the Guild, and Utr ...

. He was 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 exam ...

. 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 Prize Kenneth O. May Prize and Medal in history of mathematics is an award of the International Commission on the History of Mathematics (ICHM) "for the encouragement and promotion of the history of mathematics internationally". It was established in 19 ...

for 2005. Bos died in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

on Shrove Monday, 12 February 2024, at the age of 83.

Selected publications

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

René Descartes René Descartes ( , ; ; 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 Modern science, science. Mathematics was paramou ...

, including Descartes’ contribution to the development of

algebra Algebra is a branch of mathematics that deals with abstract systems, known as algebraic structures, and the manipulation of expressions within those systems. It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic ope ...

and

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

. * 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 scien ...

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 ...

Duckworth Duckworth may refer to: * Duckworth (surname), people with the surname ''Duckworth'' * Duckworth (''DuckTales''), fictional butler from the television series ''DuckTales'' * Duckworth Books Duckworth Books, originally Gerald Duckworth and Co ...

* 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 (parti ...

* 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 in ...

", 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 society, learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh ...

* 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'' is an online encyclopedia. It aggregates information, images, and videos from other published dictionaries, encyclopedias, and reference works. History The website was launched by Infonautics in March 1998. Infonautics w ...

References

External links

University of Aarhus Staff

155 Notes on Contributors
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bos, Henk J. M. 1940 births 2024 deaths 20th-century Dutch historians Historians of mathematics Academic staff of Utrecht University Utrecht University alumni People from Enschede 21st-century Dutch historians