I. Bernard Cohen

I. Bernard Cohen

(1914 - 2003)
Victor S. Thomas History of Science Professor, Emeritus
IB_COHEN

I. Bernhard Cohen was the Victor S. Thomas Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus at Harvard at the time of his death, June 20, 2003. He was 89 years old. Cohen was one of the pioneering generation who established the study of the history of science in America, and was largely responsible for the development of the Department at Harvard. He was best known for his work on Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Newton. Cohen, together with the Latinist Anne Miller Whitman, who died in 1984, prepared the first complete English translation of Newton's Principia Mathematica since 1729. At the time of this translation's publication in 1999, Cohen commented, "I hope that, decades from now, when I and my other books have been forgotten, this will still be useful to scholars and students."