Bronowski, Jacob

Jacob Bronowski, (born January 18, 1908, Poland—died August 22, 1974, East Hampton, New York, U.S.), Polish-born British mathematician and man of letters who eloquently presented the case for the humanistic aspects of science.

While Bronowski was still a child, his family immigrated to Germany and then to England, where he became a naturalized British subject. He won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he studied mathematics. He not only achieved high honours in mathematics but also received critical acclaim for his poetry and prose. After receiving his Ph.D. (1933) from Cambridge, he taught mathematics (1934–42) at the University College of Hull. During World War II Bronowski pioneered in a field now known as operational research and worked to increase the effectiveness of Allied bombing. After the war he headed the projects division of UNESCO (1948) and then worked for Britain’s National Coal Board (1950–63).

When Bronowski, on a scientific mission to Japan to study the effects of the atomic bombings (1945), saw firsthand the ruins of Nagasaki, he gave up military research. From that time on, he concentrated on the ethical as well as the technological aspects of science, and he shifted his attention from mathematics to the life sciences, the study of human nature, and the evolution of culture.

Among his books are The Common Sense of Science (1951) and the highly praised Science and Human Values (1956; rev. ed. 1965). In these books Bronowski examined aspects of science in nontechnical language and made a case for his view that science needs an ethos in order to function. In The Identity of Man (1965) he sought to present a unifying philosophy of human nature. He also wrote William Blake, 1757–1827: A Man Without a Mask (1943), revised as William Blake and the Age of Revolution (1965), and four radio plays.

From 1964 until his death Bronowski was a resident fellow of the Salk Institute of Biological Sciences (San Diego). His last major project was the authorship and narration of the BBC television series The Ascent of Man (1973), a luminous account of science, art, and philosophy in human history. The book was reissued in 2011, with a foreword by British biologist and writer Richard Dawkins.