Uta Merzbach | |
|---|---|
| Born | Uta Caecilia Merzbach (1933-02-09)9 February 1933 Berlin, Germany |
| Died | 27 June 2017(2017-06-27) (aged 84) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | |
| Doctoral advisor | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| Institutions | National Museum of American History |
Uta Caecilia Merzbach (February 9, 1933 – June 27, 2017) was a German-Americanhistorian of mathematics who became the first curator ofmathematical instruments at theSmithsonian Institution.[1]
Merzbach was born inBerlin, where her mother was aphilologist and her father was an economist who worked for theReich Association of Jews in Germany during World War II. The Nazi government closed the association in June 1943; they arrested the family, along with other leading members of the association, and sent them to theTheresienstadt concentration camp on August 4, 1943.[1][2] The Merzbachs survived the war and the camp, and after living for a year in a refugee camp inDeggendorf they moved toGeorgetown, Texas in 1946, where her father found a faculty position atSouthwestern University.
After high school inBrownwood, Texas, Merzbach entered Southwestern, but transferred after two years to theUniversity of Texas at Austin, where she graduated in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. In 1954, she earned a master's degree there, also in mathematics.[1] Merzbach became a school teacher, but soon returned to graduate study atHarvard University.[1]
She completed her Ph.D. at Harvard in 1965. Her dissertation,Quantity of Structure: Development of Modern Algebraic Concepts from Leibniz to Dedekind, combined mathematics and the history of science; it was jointly supervised by mathematicianGarrett Birkhoff andhistorian of scienceI. Bernard Cohen.[1][3][4]
Merzbach joined the Smithsonian as an associate curator in 1964 (later curator), and served there until 1988 in theNational Museum of American History. As well as collecting mathematical objects at the Smithsonian, she also collected interviews with many of the pioneers of computing.[1] In 1991, she co-authored the second edition ofA History of Mathematics, originally published in 1968 byCarl Benjamin Boyer.[1][5]
After her retirement she returned to Georgetown, Texas, where she died in 2017.[1]
