Jacob Bronowski (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
mathematician and biologist of
Polish-JewishThe history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in Europe and served as the center for Jewish culture, ranging from a long period of religious tolerance and prosperity among the country's Jewish population, to its...
origin. He is best remembered as the presenter and writer of the 1973
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
documentaryDocumentary film is a broad category of visual expressions that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can...
series,
The Ascent of ManThe Ascent of Man was a groundbreaking BBC documentary series, produced in association with Time-Life Films, produced by Adrian Malone, and written and presented by Jacob Bronowski.-Overview:...
.
Jacob Bronowski was born in Łódź,
Congress PolandCongress Poland , officially and formally Kingdom of Poland and informally known as Russian Poland was a constitutional personal union of the Russian Empire created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, replaced by the Central Powers in 1915 with the Kingdom of Poland...
,
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in 1908. His family moved to Germany during the
First World WarWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, and then to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1920. Although, according to Bronowski, he knew only two English words on arriving in Great Britain, he gained admission to the Central Foundation Boys' School in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
and went on to study at the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge , located in the City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth oldest in Europe...
.
As a mathematics student at
Jesus College, CambridgeJesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
, Bronowski co-edited — with
William EmpsonSir William Empson was an English literary critic and poet.He is sometimes praised as the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson and William Hazlitt, and widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, fundamental to the New Critics...
— the literary periodical
Experiment, which first appeared in 1928.
These are the moments when the powerful mind or the forceful character feels the ferment of the times, when his thoughts quicken, and when he can inject into the uncertainties of others the creative ideas which will strengthen them with purpose. At such a moment the man who can direct others, in thought or in action, can remake the world.
The Common Sense of Science (1951), on the influence of Isaac Newton.
The discoveries of science, the works of art are explorations — more, are explosions, of a hidden likeness. The discoverer or the artist presents in them two aspects of nature and fuses them into one. This is the act of creation, in which an original thought is born, and it is the same act in original science and original art.
Part 1: "The Creative Mind", §9 (p. 19)
Science, like art, is not a copy of nature but a re-creation of her.
Part 1: "The Creative Mind", §9 (p. 20)
The symbol and the metaphor are as necessary to science as to poetry.
Part 2: "The Habit of Truth", §6 (p. 36)
No fact in the world is instant, infinitesimal and ultimate, a single mark. There are, I hold, no atomic facts. In the language of science, every fact is a field—a crisscross of implications, those that lead to it and those that lead from it. [...] We condense the laws around concepts. Science takes its coherence, its intellectual and imaginative strength together, from the concepts at which its laws cross, like knots in a mesh.
Part 3: "The Sense of Human Dignity", §1 (p. 52)
There is a social injunction implied in the positivist and analyst methods. This social axiom is that We OUGHT to act in such a way that what IS true can be verified to be so.
Part 3: "The Sense of Human Dignity", §3 (p. 58) [emphasis in original]
Jacob Bronowski (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
mathematician and biologist of
Polish-JewishThe history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in Europe and served as the center for Jewish culture, ranging from a long period of religious tolerance and prosperity among the country's Jewish population, to its...
origin. He is best remembered as the presenter and writer of the 1973
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
documentaryDocumentary film is a broad category of visual expressions that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can...
series,
The Ascent of ManThe Ascent of Man was a groundbreaking BBC documentary series, produced in association with Time-Life Films, produced by Adrian Malone, and written and presented by Jacob Bronowski.-Overview:...
.
Life and work
Jacob Bronowski was born in Łódź,
Congress PolandCongress Poland , officially and formally Kingdom of Poland and informally known as Russian Poland was a constitutional personal union of the Russian Empire created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, replaced by the Central Powers in 1915 with the Kingdom of Poland...
,
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in 1908. His family moved to Germany during the
First World WarWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, and then to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1920. Although, according to Bronowski, he knew only two English words on arriving in Great Britain, he gained admission to the Central Foundation Boys' School in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
and went on to study at the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge , located in the City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth oldest in Europe...
.
As a mathematics student at
Jesus College, CambridgeJesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
, Bronowski co-edited — with
William EmpsonSir William Empson was an English literary critic and poet.He is sometimes praised as the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson and William Hazlitt, and widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, fundamental to the New Critics...
— 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 was also a strong chess player, earning a half-blue while at Cambridge and composing numerous chess problems for the
British Chess MagazineBritish Chess Magazine is the world's oldest chess magazine in continuous publication. First published in January 1881, it has appeared at monthly intervals ever since including during World War I and World War II. It is frequently known in the chess world as BCM.The founder and first general...
between 1926 and 1970. He received a Ph.D. in
mathematicsMathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
in 1935, writing a dissertation in
algebraic geometryAlgebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which, as the name suggests, combines techniques of abstract algebra, especially commutative algebra, with the language and the problems of geometry. It occupies a central place in modern mathematics and has multiple conceptual connections with such...
. From 1934 to 1942 he taught mathematics at the
University College of HullThe University of Hull, also known as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull , a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The main campus is located on Cottingham Road in the north west of the city while a smaller campus is located in nearby Scarborough...
. For a time in the 1930s he lived near
Laura RidingLaura Jackson was an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer.- Early life :...
and
Robert GravesGraves considered himself a poet first and foremost. His poems, together with his translations and innovative interpretations of the Greek Myths, his memoir of the First World war, Good-bye to All That, and his historical study of poetic inspiration, The White Goddess, have never been out of...
in Majorca.
During the
Second World WarWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Bronowski worked in
operations researchOperations research or Quantitative management, as termed in the USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia, and operational research, as termed in Europe, is an interdisciplinary branch of applied mathematics that uses methods such as mathematical modeling, statistics, and algorithms to arrive at...
, and afterward became Director of Research for the
National Coal BoardThe National Coal Board was the Statutory Corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in Britain. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the mines on 'vesting day', 1 January 1947...
in the
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
. Following his experiences as an official observer of the after-effects of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings, he turned to
biologyBiology is the natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy...
, as did his friend
Leo SzilardLeó Szilárd was a Hungarian physicist who conceived the nuclear chain reaction and worked on the Manhattan Project...
, 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 JardineLisa Anne Jardine CBE , née Lisa Anne Bronowski, is a British historian of the early modern period. She is professor of Renaissance Studies and Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, University of London, and is Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority...
and another being the filmmaker Judith Bronowski.
In 1967 Bronowski delivered the six Silliman Foundation lectures at
Yale UniversityYale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...
and chose as his subject the role of imagination and symbolic language in the progress of scientific knowledge. Transcripts of the lectures were published posthumously in 1978 as
The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination and remain in print.
He first became familiar to the British public through appearances on the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
television version of
The Brains TrustThe Brains Trust was a popular informational BBC radio and later television programme in the United Kingdom during the 1940s and 50s.- History :...
in the late 1950s, but is better known for his thirteen part series
The Ascent of ManThe Ascent of Man was a groundbreaking BBC documentary series, produced in association with Time-Life Films, produced by Adrian Malone, and written and presented by Jacob Bronowski.-Overview:...
(1973). This was an inspiration for
Carl SaganCarl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences...
to make
CosmosCosmos: A Personal Voyage is a thirteen-part television series written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, with Sagan as global presenter. It was executive-produced by Adrian Malone, produced by David Kennard, Geoffrey Haines-Stiles and Gregory Andorfer, and directed by the producers and...
in 1980. During the making of
The Ascent of Man, Bronowski was interviewed by
Michael ParkinsonSir Michael Parkinson, CBE is an English broadcaster and journalist. He presented his interview programme, Parkinson, from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007.- Early life :...
, and Bronowski's description of a visit to Auschwitz — he had lost many family members during the Nazi era — was described by Parkinson as one of his most memorable interviews.
Jacob Bronowski died in 1974 of a heart attack in
East HamptonThe Town of East Hampton is a town located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York...
, New York a year after
The Ascent of Man was completed, and was buried in the western side of London's
Highgate CemeteryHighgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in Highgate, London, England. It is designated Grade II* on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.-History and setting:...
, near the entrance.
Books
- The Poet's Defence (1939)
- William Blake: A Man Without a Mask (1943)
- The Common Sense of Science (1951)
- The Face of Violence (1954)
- William Blake: The Penguin Poets Series (1958)
- The Western Intellectual Tradition, From Leonardo to Hegel (1960) - with Bruce Mazlish
- Biography of an Atom (1963) - with Millicent Selsam
- Insight (1964)
- 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
Legacy
The Ascent of Man placed sixty-fifth on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000 that was voted for by industry professionals.
Charlie BrookerCharlton Brooker, commonly known as Charlie Brooker, is a British journalist, comic writer and broadcaster. His style of humour is savage and profane, with surreal elements and a consistent satirical pessimism...
praises Bronowski and
The Ascent of Man on his BBC 4 programme,
Charlie Brooker's ScreenwipeCharlie Brooker's Screenwipe is a British television review programme broadcast on BBC Four by Charlie Brooker. It is similar in tone to Brooker's Screen Burn column which he writes in The Guardian newspaper’s Guide supplement every Saturday...
.
External links
Has biography, pictures, and obituary.