Humanities Faculty

Jed Z. Buchwald

Doris and Henry Dreyfuss Professor of History

Research interests

History of physics, philosophy of physical sciences, history of understanding of pre-classical antiquity.

Research Statement

Over the years I have written books and articles on the histories of optics and electromagnetism, and I continue to work and publish in these areas. Since arriving at Caltech my interests have also turned to other topics, in particular to issues that arose in the 18th and 19th centuries from attempts by scientists and others to engage with new archaeological discoveries and with historical chronology. This led to an article in Caltech's Engineering and Science journal, and eventually to a substantial project involving a collaboration with my colleague, Moti Feingold. Our aim here is to write a book on Isaac Newton's attempt to redate the past using astronomical evidence, and along the way we have discovered what we believe to be important issues concerning the understanding and manipulation of data before the development of statistical methods. The book MS is thusfar about 80,000 words in length, and we anticipate a final manuscript of about 300,000 words. Finally, I continue to edit or co-edit three books series and one journal and to serve on the boards of several others.