Roger Hahn
historian of science
Roger Hahn (January 5, 1932 – May 30, 2011) was an American historian of science known for his work on the scientific culture of 18th-century France and the institutional history of science. A professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1961 to his retirement emeritus, he was best known for his studies of the Paris Academy of Sciences and of the life and work of Pierre-Simon Laplace.
Early life and education
Roger Hahn was born in Paris, France, on January 5, 1932, into a Jewish family that fled Nazi oppression in 1941 when he was 9 years old by escaping to New York City. He pursued higher education at Harvard University, graduating in 1953 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in both physics and history; at Harvard, he studied with I. Bernard Cohen and Thomas Kuhn. He remained at Harvard to earn a Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) in education in 1954.
As a Fulbright Scholar, Hahn earned a diploma at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris 1954–1955, where he attended seminars by historians of science Alexandre Koyré and René Taton. He then served in the U.S. Army as an interpreter stationed near Paris at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe 1955–1957, then earned his Ph.D. in the history of science from Cornell University in 1962; at Cornell, he was supervised by Henry Guerlac.
Career
Hahn joined the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961, where he remained for his entire academic career. With John L. Heilbron, he played a key role in developing the history of science as a discipline at the university. Hahn served as the director of Berkeley's Office for the History of Science and Technology (OHST) from 1993 to 1998, and he helped expand the program's library collections, for instance acquiring important manuscripts related to the history of science.
The public source identifies “Roger Hahn” as historian of science. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Roger, Hahn and historian.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q52158640. VIAF identifies the subject as 9955334. The Library of Congress control number is n82122367. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 2011, 1961 and 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “Roger Hahn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.