In Memoriam: Olaf Schmidt (1913–1996)

✍ Scribed by Lis Brack-Bernsen

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 134 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0315-0860
• DOI: 10.1006/hmat.1997.2134

✦ Synopsis

University of Copenhagen. He received the degree of cand. mag. in mathematics (with physics, chemistry, and astronomy as minor subjects) with highest honors in 1938. During the year 1938-1939, he taught mathematics at Østre Borgerdyds Gymnasium, Copenhagen and did research in ancient mathematics and astronomy under the direction of Professor Otto Neugebauer.

In the summer of 1939, Olaf Schmidt followed Neugebauer to the United States and became an instructor in mathematics and a research assistant at Brown University. Because of the occupation of Denmark by the Germans, he was forced to stay in the United States much longer than he had planned. He studied Sanskrit and ancient astronomy, and in May 1943, he became a Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Mathematics at Brown University, with a thesis On the Relation between Ancient Mathematics and Spherical Astronomy. In this thesis, he showed that the central problem in ancient astronomy originated in the observation of horizontal phenomena and consisted in finding the arc of the equator which was