XII International History of Science Congress Paris, 25—31 August 1968

Dominated by its medieval moated castle, the small Dutch market town of ’s-Heerenberg stands a few miles from Arnhem close to the German border. Casper Hakfoort was born into this rural community on 6 January 1955 and he returned to it to be buried shortly after his death on 4 March 1999. In the intervening forty-five years Casper had travelled far from his roots in this small agricultural town and played a significant – but tragically curtailed – role in the international history of science community.As a bright pupil at school in ’s-Heerenberg he was attracted to the study of physics. Deciding to pursue further studies in this area he registered at the Catholic University of Nijmegen in 1973, transferring to the University of Utrecht two years later and obtaining his first degree in 1980. However, physics did not fully satisfy his intellectual strivings and he sought answers to fundamental questions that are not engaged in most physics courses. This dissatisfaction prompted him to forsake the study of physics and instead to register for a Ph.D. in the history of science under the supervision of Professor H. A. M. Snelders at the University of Utrecht, where he studied from 1980 to 1985. In the following year he successfully defended his dissertation, entitled ‘Optica in de eeuw van Euler’, later published in Amsterdam, in 1986.

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International collaboration in the history of science of Central Europe

Studia Historiae Scientiarum ◽

10.4467/23921749pkhn_pau.16.017.5273 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. 347-353

Author(s):

Soňa Štrbaňova ◽

Keyword(s):

History Of Science ◽

Central Europe ◽

International Collaboration ◽

Contemporary History ◽

Habsburg Monarchy ◽

International History ◽

Czech Academy ◽

History Of ◽

History Of Sciences ◽

Academy Of Sciences

In the last ten years, approximately, we could witness an evolution in informal international collaboration focusing on shared and interconnected history of science in the Habsburg Monarchy and in Central Europe in general. This effort, which includes mainly historians of science from Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, has already produced a number of important results and contributed to the thematization of some timeless topics of history of sciences such as, for instance, nationalization and internationalization of science. In the context of this cooperation, the seminar of Jan Surman, a historian of science of Polish descent, held at the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague in May 2015, concentrated on the formation of national scientific terminologies. It also underlined the necessity and usefulness of international collaboration in achieving a deeper understanding of the “national” histories of science, which cannot be separated from the “international” history.

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