Boris Rosenfeld

Boris Rosenfeld August 30, 1917 - April 5, 2008 Boris Rosenfeld, 90, of State College, passed away Saturday, April 5, 2008, at his home. He was born Aug. 30, 1917, in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the son of the late Abraham and Maria Rosenfeld. On April 7, 1946, in Moscow, he married Lucy Davidov, who survives. Boris Rosenfeld was a distinguished research mathematician and teacher and a world authority in the history of science, especially that of ancient Greece and medieval Middle East. He was a full member of the International Academy of the History of Science. He received his master's degree, Ph.D. and the highest Doctor of Science degree from Moscow State University. During the World War II, he was on noncombat duties with the Soviet Army, which was fighting Nazi Germany in the alliance with Western democracies. From 1950 until his immigration to the U. S. in 1990, he held a succession of professorial and senior research appointments, including Azherbaijan State University in Baku, pedagogical institutes at Zagorsk and Kolomna, and the Institute of History of Science and Technology of the USSR Academy of Science. At age 73, he was appointed as an adjunct professor in the mathematics department at Penn State, which later became a joint appointment with departments of history and philosophy. He retired from active teaching duties in 1995 at age 78. He continued active research work until shortly before his death, continuing to publish books and articles in international professional journals. One of his fundamental achievements was a comprehensive bibliography and commentary on all existing medieval Islamic manuscripts in mathematics, astronomy and related areas published in Istanbul, Turkey in 2003. He completed the last and one of the most important endeavors of his life, a translation and scientific commentary of the classical treatise of Apollonius in 2007, being completely blind by then. From 1940 until his death, Boris Rosenfeld published over 400 scientific papers in professional journals and many monographs, several of which were highly influential and became standard sources in corresponding fields of mathematics and history of science. He has a large group of students and followers from his years of teaching and research in the Soviet Union. He supervised 82 Ph.D. dissertations, an unusually high number for his field. His last Ph.D. student, Diana Roades, received her Ph.D. from Penn State in 2005. Apart from his wife, Boris Rosenfeld is survived by two daughters, Dr. Svetlana Katok, of State College, and Julia Rozenman, of Great Falls, Va., and their husbands, Dr. Anatole Katok and Dr. Michael Rozenman; five grandchildren, Dr. Elena Katok Bolton and her husband, Dr. Gary Bolton, Boris Katok and his wife, Sherrie Hashemi, Alexandra Rozenman and her husband, Dr. Alexander Voronov, Dr. Mary Rozenman, and Danya Katok and her fiancee, Nicholas Ahlbin; and two great-grandchildren, Uriel Bolton 6, and Zoa Katok, 6. A funeral service will be at 1 p.m. Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at Koch Funeral Home, 2401 S. Atherton St., State College. In his long fight with eye diseases and approaching blindness, Boris Rosenfeld has benefited from superior skills of several outstanding eye surgeons and from two cornea transplants. In recognition of that, memorial contributions may be made to the Gift of Life Family House at http://www.donors1.org/extras/contribution/house/house.html.