View source for Jacob Bronowski

{{Short description|Polish-born British mathematician and historian (1908–1974)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}}
{{Redirect|Bronowski|the surname|Bronowski (surname)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Jacob Bronowski
| image = Bronowski.jpg
| caption = 
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1908|01|18}}
| birth_place = [[Łódź]], [[Congress Poland]], [[Russian Empire]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1974|08|22|1908|01|18}}
| death_place = [[East Hampton (town), New York|East Hampton, New York]], U.S.
| resting_place = [[Highgate Cemetery]], London, England
| nationality = British
| field = [[Mathematics]], [[operations research]], [[biology]], [[history of science]], [[geometry]]
| work_institution = [[Salk Institute]]
| alma_mater = [[Jesus College, Cambridge]]
| doctoral_advisor = [[H. F. Baker]]
| known_for = ''[[The Ascent of Man]]''
| prizes = [[Senior Wrangler (University of Cambridge)|Senior wrangler]] ([[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]])
| spouse = {{marriage|Rita Coblentz|1941}}
| children = 4, including [[Lisa Jardine]]
}}

'''Jacob Bronowski''' (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher. He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to science, and as the presenter and writer of the thirteen-part 1973 [[BBC]] television [[documentary film|documentary]] series, and accompanying book, ''[[The Ascent of Man]].'' He was widely regarded as "one of the most revered intellectuals on the global stage."<ref>{{cite news|last=Radford|first= Tim|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/apr/15/ascent-man-jacob-bronowski-review |title=The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski - review|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=15 April 2011|access-date= 29 September 2018}}</ref>

Bronowski's family moved from [[Congress Poland]] to Germany and then to England in 1920, when he was 12 years old. He won a scholarship to study mathematics at the [[University of Cambridge]]. His interests have been described as ranging "widely, from biology to poetry and from chess to [[Humanism]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://humanistheritage.org.uk/articles/jacob-bronowski/ |title=Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974)|website= humanistheritage.org.uk|access-date= 29 September 2018}}</ref> He taught mathematics at [[University College Hull]] between 1934 and 1942. During [[World War II]] he led the field of [[operations research]] and worked to increase the effectiveness of Allied bombing. 

After the war Bronowski headed the projects division of [[UNESCO]]. He wrote poetry and had a deep affinity for [[William Blake]]. From 1950 to 1963 he worked for the [[National Coal Board]] in the UK. From 1963 he was a resident fellow of the [[Salk Institute for Biological Studies]] in San Diego, until his death in 1974 in [[East Hampton (town), New York|East Hampton, New York]], just a year after the airing of his ''Ascent of Man''.

==Early life and education==
Jacob Bronowski was born to a Polish-Jewish family in [[Łódź]], [[Congress Poland]], in 1908. His family moved to Germany during the [[First World War]], and to Britain in 1920, Bronowski's parents having been married in Britain in the London house of his maternal grandfather in 1907. Although, according to Bronowski, he knew only two English words on arriving in Britain,<ref>{{cite book | last = Bronowski | first = Jacob | title = The Common Sense of Science | publisher = Harvard University Press | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | year = 1967 | page = [https://archive.org/details/commonsenseofsci00bron_0/page/8 8] | isbn = 978-0-674-14651-8 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/commonsenseofsci00bron_0/page/8 }}</ref> he gained admission to the [[Central Foundation Boys' School]] in [[London]] and went on to study mathematics at the [[University of Cambridge]], graduating as [[Senior Wrangler]] (best student mathematician) in 1930.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x6VFAAAAYAAJ |magazine=[[New Scientist]]|number=262|title= Profile – Dr Jacob Bronowski {{!}} His greatest delight: to share his thoughts |date=23 November 1961|page= 483}}</ref>

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 was also a strong chess player, earning a [[Blue (university sport)|half-blue]] while at Cambridge and composing numerous chess problems for the ''[[British Chess Magazine]]'' between 1926 and 1970.<ref>{{cite web | last = Winter | first = Edward | title = Chess Notes | url =  https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter34.html |access-date = 23 March 2008}}</ref> He received a PhD in [[mathematics]] at Cambridge in 1935, writing a dissertation in [[algebraic geometry]]. For a time in the 1930s he lived near [[Laura Riding]] and [[Robert Graves]] in [[Majorca]]. From 1934 to 1942, he taught mathematics at the [[University of Hull|University College of Hull]]. Beginning in this period, the British secret service [[MI5]] placed him under surveillance, believing he was a security risk,<ref>{{cite news |first=Sanchia |last=Berg |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9444000/9444270.stm |title=MI5 'said Bronowski was a risk' |work=BBC News |date=4 April 2011}}</ref> which may have restricted his access to senior posts in the UK.

==Wartime work in military analysis==
[[File:J Bronowski.jpg|thumb|Jacob Bronowski]]
During the [[Second World War]], Bronowski worked in [[operations research]] for the UK's [[Ministry of Home Security]], where he developed mathematical approaches to bombing strategy for [[RAF Bomber Command]].

At the end of the war, Bronowski was part of a British team of scientists and [[civil engineer]]s who visited [[Japan]] to document the effects of the [[atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]] for the purpose of studying the effects of the atomic bomb and its implications for future UK [[civil defence]]. Bronowski, in conjunction with Professor W. N. Thomas of [[Cardiff University]],<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers |date=June 1962 |volume=22 |issue=2 |title=Obituary: Professor William Norman Thomas CBE, MA, PhD |pages=249–50 |doi=10.1680/iicep.1962.11092 |url=https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/10.1680/iicep.1962.11092|url-access=subscription }}</ref> subsequently produced the secret ''Report of the British Mission to Japan: the Effects of the Atomic Bombs Dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=W. N. |last2=Bronowski |first2=Jacob |author2-link=Jacob Bronowski |display-authors=etal |title=The Effects of the Atomic Bombs Dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Report of the British Mission to Japan |date=c. 1946 |publisher=US Atomic Energy Commission |place=Tennessee |series=Publication No. NP-1156 |url=https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4430289 |format=PDF}} NB! This file has no identifying file extension: you will need to save it as <code>4430289.pdf</code> in order to open it in a pdf reader.</ref> which was passed to various government departments and consulted in the design of future UK public buildings. It was simultaneously published in the US.

==Postwar biological analysis==
Following his experiences of the after-effects of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings, he discontinued his work for British military research and turned to [[biology]], as did his friend [[Leo Szilard]], and many other physicists of that time, to better understand the nature of violence. Subsequently, Bronowski became Director of Research for the [[National Coal Board]] in the UK, and an associate director of the [[Salk Institute for Biological Studies|Salk Institute]] from 1964.

In 1950, Bronowski was given the [[Taung Child]]'s fossilised skull and asked to try, using his statistical skills, to combine a measure of the size of the skull's teeth with their shape  to discriminate them from the teeth of apes.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Swetz |first1=Frank J. |date=March 1985 |title=Mathematics: A Vehicle for Better Global Understanding  |jstor=27964452 |journal=The Mathematics Teacher |volume=78 |issue=3 |pages=207–215 |doi=10.5951/MT.78.3.0207 }}</ref> Work on this turned his interests towards the biology of humanity's intellectual products.

==Public science education==
In 1967 Bronowski delivered the six [[Silliman Memorial Lectures]] at [[Yale University]] 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 [[BBC Television]] version of ''[[The Brains Trust]]'' in the late 1950s. 

=== ''The Ascent of Man'' (1973); BBC television documentary ===
Bronowski is best remembered for ''[[The Ascent of Man]]'', a 13-part series about the history of human life and scientific endeavour. This project was commissioned by [[David Attenborough]], then director of programmes for BBC Television, and was intended to complement two preceding series: art historian [[Kenneth Clark]]'s "personal view" series ''[[Civilisation (TV series)|Civilisation]]'' (1969), which had covered cultural history, and [[Alistair Cooke]]'s series ''[[America: A Personal History of the United States]]'' (first broadcast in 1972).<ref>Deutsch, David, 
''[https://nautil.us/not-merely-the-finest-tv-documentary-series-ever-made-234658/ Not Merely the Finest TV Documentary Series Ever Made: A reflection on Jacob Bronowski’s “The Ascent of Man”]'', [[Nautilus Quarterly]], November 22, 2013 - a lengthy review </ref>

The documentary was described as "a landmark in television" and "lavishly produced and visually stunning, it impressed viewers with its lucidity and with the power of the presenter’s personality".<ref name="nature_review" />

==== Auschwitz scene ====
In a personal scene filmed at [[Auschwitz concentration camp]], where many Polish members of his family died during [[the Holocaust]], Bronowski walks into the muddy waters where the ashes of his family were thrown, saying:
<blockquote>It is said that science will [[dehumanization|dehumanise]] people and turn them into numbers. That is false - tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality - this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bronowski |first=Jacob |title=The Ascent of Man |date=1980 |publisher=British Broadcasting Corporation |isbn=978-0-563-10498-8 |edition=Reprinted |location=London |pages=374–5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ascent of Man, The (1973) |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/549805/index.html |website=BFI Screenonline |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=17 August 2024}}</ref></blockquote>

In an interview by [[Michael Parkinson]] conducted soon after the program was broadcast, Bronowski's recounted his visit to [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] leading to Parkinson's describing the segment as one of the most memorable parts of any interview he had done.<ref>{{cite interview |last=Bronowski |first=Jacob |interviewer=Michael Parkinson |date=8 February 1974 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00nyy41 |title=Dr. Jacob Bronowski |work=[[Parkinson (TV series)|Parkinson]] |publisher=BBC Television |access-date=2014-02-03}}</ref> Decades later and at the end of his career, Parkinson said: "if I could save one interview from the thousands I have done, it would be the one-man show with Professor Jacob Bronowski."<ref>Parkinson, Michael (2010), ''Parky's People''. Hodder & Stoughton.</ref>

==Personal life==
Bronowski married Rita Coblentz in 1941.<ref name="Jardine">{{cite news|first=Lisa |last=Jardine|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/22/rita-bronowski-obituary |title=Obituary: Rita Bronowski |newspaper=The Guardian|date=22 September 2010}}</ref> The couple had four daughters, the eldest was the academic [[Lisa Jardine]] and another is the filmmaker Judith Bronowski.<ref>"[https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/proginfo/2024/34/the-ascent-of-jacob-bronowski The Ascent of Jacob Bronowski]. BBC, 17 August, 2024. Retrieved 28 February 2025</ref>

He died in 1974 of a heart attack in [[East Hampton (town), New York|East Hampton]], New York,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20081222070204/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943740,00.html "Milestones, Sep. 2, 1974"], ''Time'' website (n.d., reprint of contemporary item)</ref> a year after ''The Ascent of Man'' was first broadcast.

== Legacy ==
In 1970, John Cleese says "I'm not Doctor bloody Bronowski!" in the Monty Python sketch, "Exploding Penguin on the TV Set". In 2011, on the reissue of ''The Ascent of Man'' with a foreword by [[Richard Dawkins]], [[Tim Radford]] in ''The Guardian''  described it "as compelling as ever".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Radford |first=Tim |date=2011-04-15 |title=The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski - review |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/apr/15/ascent-man-jacob-bronowski-review |access-date=2023-12-23 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

In 2013, [[Cambridge University Press]] published a critique, ''Jacob Bronowski: a humanist intellectual for an atomic age, 1946–1956'', by the science historian Ralph Desmarais, who wrote: "Witnessing Hiroshima helped transform him from pure mathematician–poet to scientific administrator ...  to fame on the BBC airwaves ...  from literary intellectual who promoted the superior truthfulness of poetry and poets to scientific humanist insisting that science and scientists were the standard-bearers of truth", but "discussing atomic energy ... Bronowski not only downplayed the bomb's significance but was deliberately vague regarding Britain's atomic weapon development programme."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Desmarais |first=Ralph |date=2013-01-21 |title=Jacob Bronowski: a humanist intellectual for an atomic age, 1946–1956 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/abs/jacob-bronowski-a-humanist-intellectual-for-an-atomic-age-19461956/AABCAF105D9507DF10408621076C681E |journal=The British Journal for the History of Science |language=en |volume=45 |issue=4 |pages=573–589 |doi=10.1017/S0007087412001069 |s2cid=146348006 |issn=0007-0874|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In 2015, the [[British Science Association]] launched The Jacob Bronowski Award Lecture at the British Science Festival in September, launched in partnership with the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], to celebrate cutting-edge work at the interface between the arts and sciences. In 2019, Timothy Sandefur's biography ''The Ascent of Jacob Bronowski: The Life and Ideas of a Popular Science Icon'',<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sandefur |first=Timothy |title=The ascent of Jacob Bronowski: the life and ideas of a popular science icon |date=2019 |publisher=Prometheus Books |isbn=978-1-63388-526-4 |location=Amherst, New York}}</ref> he describes Bronowski as more than a polymath, and that he "was involved with nearly every major intellectual undertaking of the twentieth century"; that he was a "serious philosopher" who made "probably the finest documentary film ever made".<ref name="nature_review">{{Cite journal |last=Edgerton |first=David |date=2019-07-01 |title=Jacob Bronowski: the complex life of a science popularizer |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=571 |issue=7763 |pages=32–33 |doi=10.1038/d41586-019-02010-y|doi-access=free |bibcode=2019Natur.571...32E }}</ref>

==Books==
[[File:Bronowski-marker.jpg|thumb|Jacob Bronowski's grave in [[Highgate Cemetery]], London]]
* ''The Poet's Defence'' (1939)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bronowski |first=Jacob |title=The poet's defence |date=1939 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-50535-3 |edition=Facsimile |location=Cambridge}}</ref>
* ''William Blake: A Man Without a Mask'' (1943)
* ''The Common Sense of Science'' (1951)
* ''The Face of Violence'' (1954)
* {{cite book | title = Science and Human Values | orig-year = 1956| year = 1965 | publisher = Julian Messner, Inc. | location = New York }}
* ''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)
* {{cite book | title = The Identity of Man | url = https://archive.org/details/identityofman0000bron | url-access = registration | year = 1965 | publisher = The Natural History Press | location = Garden City }}
* ''Nature and Knowledge: The Philosophy of Contemporary Science'' (1969)
* ''Atomic Fusion'', illustrated by [[Bartley Powell]]. Published by Newman Neame Take Home Books Ltd.
* ''William Blake and the Age of Revolution'' (1972)<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bronowski |first1=Jacob |title=William Blake and the age of revolution |last2=Blake |first2=William |date=1972 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |isbn=978-0-7100-7277-1 |edition=1. publ |location=London}}</ref>
* ''The Ascent of Man'' (1974)
* ''A Sense of the Future'' (1977)
* ''Magic, Science & Civilisation'' (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.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{commonscat}}
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource|works=by}}
* {{MathGenealogy|id=18503}}
* {{MacTutor Biography|id=Bronowski}} (includes biography, pictures and obituary).
* [https://jacobbronowski.org/ The Jacob Bronowski Archive]
* [http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ins.chess/bronowski/ The Bronowski Trophy (chess)]
* {{Cite web|date=2019-11-13|title=The Ascent of Jacob Bronowski: The Life and Ideas of a Popular Science Icon by Timothy Sandefur (Review)|url=https://theobjectivestandard.com/2019/11/the-ascent-of-jacob-bronowski-the-life-and-ideas-of-a-popular-science-icon-by-timothy-sandefur/|first=Stephen R. C. |last=Hicks |website=The Objective Standard|language=en-US}}
*{{Internet Archive author |sname= Jacob Bronowski}}
{{Portal bar|Biography|History of Science|Poetry|Judaism|Poland|London|United Kingdom}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bronowski, Jacob}}
[[Category:1908 births]]
[[Category:1974 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century British historians]]
[[Category:20th-century British poets]]
[[Category:20th-century Polish Jews]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of Hull]]
[[Category:Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:BBC television presenters]]
[[Category:British agnostics]]
[[Category:British humanists]]
[[Category:British science communicators]]
[[Category:Burials at Highgate Cemetery]]
[[Category:Historians of science]]
[[Category:Jewish agnostics]]
[[Category:Jewish biologists]]
[[Category:Jewish historians]]
[[Category:Jewish poets]]
[[Category:Jewish British scientists]]
[[Category:People educated at Central Foundation Boys' School]]
[[Category:Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Prix Italia winners]]
[[Category:Salk Institute for Biological Studies people]]
[[Category:Scientists from Łódź]]
[[Category:Senior Wranglers]]
[[Category:William Blake scholars]]