Mathematics Fit for a Prince by Michael Korey

With Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai

Mathematics Fit for a Prince: Heavenly Machines, Terrestrial Instruments, and the Geometry of Power

by Michael Korey 

Dr Michael Korey is a mathematician, historian of science, and senior curator at the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon (MPS) of the State Art Collections in Dresden, Germany. After studies in Princeton, Cambridge, and the University of Chicago, he came to Germany on a postdoctoral fellowship from the Max Planck Society and subsequently taught mathematics at several universities. In 2002 he became a curator at the MPS, a venerable collection of historic scientific instruments, clocks, and globes. There he has worked on the renewal of the permanent exhibition, initiated the museum's acclaimed education programme, and curated several exhibitions with support from foundations in Germany, the UK, and the US. His current research projects in the material culture of science include a survey of the world's oldest surviving telescopes and a study of planetary automata of the Renaissance. In the years 2013–17 he was Secretary of the Scientific Instrument Commission of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. For his outreach and communication of mathematics he was awarded the national Media Prize of the German Mathematical Society in 2019.