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Jacob Bronowski

Born	January 18, 1908 Łódź, Poland
Died	August 22, 1974 East Hampton, New York, USA
Residence	UK
Nationality	Polish-English
Field	Mathematics
Institution	Salk Institute
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
Academic advisor	H. F. Baker
Known for	Geometry

Jacob Bronowski (January 18, 1908, Łódź, Poland - August 22, 1974, East Hampton, New York, USA) was an English-Polish mathematician, best known as the presenter of the BBC television documentary series, The Ascent of Man.

Contents 1 Life and Work 2 Books 3 Popular Culture 4 External links 5 References

Jacob Bronowski was born in Łódź, Poland on January 18, 1908. His family moved to Germany during World War I, and then to England in 1920. Although, according to Bronowski, he knew only two English words on arriving in Great Britain^[1], he gained admission to the Central Foundation School in London and went on to study at the University of Cambridge.

As a mathematics student at Jesus College, Cambridge, Bronowski co-edited - with William Empson - the literary periodical Experiment, which first appeared in 1928. Bronowski would pursue this sort of dual activity, in both the mathematical and literary worlds, throughout his professional life. He received a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1935, writing a dissertation in algebraic geometry. From 1934 to 1942 he taught mathematics at the University of Hull. For a time in the 1930s he lived near Laura Riding and Robert Graves in Majorca.

During World War II Bronowski worked in operations research, and afterwards became Director of Research for the National Coal Board (UK). Following his experiences as an official observer of the after-effects of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings, he turned to biology, as did his friend Leo Szilard, to better understand the nature of violence. Bronowski was an Associate Director of the Salk Institute from 1964.

Jacob Bronowski married Rita Coblentz in 1941. The couple had four children, all daughters, the eldest being the British academic Lisa Jardine.

He first became familiar to the British public through appearances on BBC's The Brains Trust in the late 1950s.

Jacob Bronowski died in 1974, a year after finishing the filming of his monumental work, The Ascent of Man, and was buried in the western side of London's Highgate Cemetery, near the entrance.

An interview with Michael Parkinson describing the effect a visit to Auschwitz had on Bronowski - who was Jewish and had lost many family members during the Nazi era - while making The Ascent of Man, has been apparently termed by Parkinson one of the most memorable in the interviewer's long-running chat show on BBC and ITV.

The Ascent of Man was a strong inspiration and influence for Carl Sagan's Cosmos series in 1980.

• The Poet's Defence (1939)
• William Blake: A Man Without a Mask (1943)
• The Common Sense of Science (1951)
• The Face of Violence (1954)
• Science and Human Values (1956)
• The Western Intellectual Tradition, From Leonardo to Hegel (1960) - with Bruce Mazlish
• Biography of an Atom (1963) - with Millicent Selsam
• Insight (1964)
• The Identity of Man (1965)
• Nature and Knowledge: The Philosophy of Contemporary Science (1969)
• William Blake and the Age of Revolution (1972)
• The Ascent of Man (1974)
• A Sense of the Future (1977)
• Magic Science & Civilization (1978)
• The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (1978)
• The Visionary Eye: Essays in the Arts, Literature and Science (1979) - edited by Piero Ariotti and Rita Bronowski

Dr. Bronowski is immortalized in the famous Monty Python sketch "Penguin on the Telly" (Episode 22 1970):

Second Pepperpot: Perhaps it's from the zoo.

First Pepperpot: Which zoo?

Second Pepperpot: How should I know which zoo? I'm not Dr. Bloody Bronowski!

First Pepperpot: How does Dr. Bronowski know which zoo it came from?

Second Pepperpot: He knows everything.

First Pepperpot: Oh, I wouldn't like that, that would take the mystery out of life.

• O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Jacob Bronowski". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. Has biography, pictures, and obituary.
• The Jacob Bronowski Archive
• The Thought of Jacob Bronowski in his Essays and in the Ascent of Man
• Video of Chapter 1 from The Ascent of Man

Persondata
NAME	Bronowski, Jacob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH	January 18, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH	Łódź, Poland
DATE OF DEATH	August 22, 1974
PLACE OF DEATH	East Hampton, New York, USA