Roy G. Neville Prize awarded to Helge Kragh

The Science History Institute by unanimous decision has awarded the 2019 Roy G. Neville Prize in Bibliography or Biography to Helge Kragh. Established in 2006 and named for chemist and bibliophile Roy G. Neville, the prize recognizes outstanding works of biography or bibliography. In order to be considered for nomination, the work must have been published during a period of five calendar years immediately preceding the year of competition. The prize will be awarded on Thursday, October 17, 2019, during the Science History Institute’s Board Dinner. The award includes a cash prize of USD 5,000.

The prize honors Helge Kragh’s book Julius Thomsen: A Life in Chemistry and Beyond (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2016). The jury characterizes Kraghs's book as “truly a masterpiece and a fitting tribute to Julius Thomsen and his contribution to the chemical and molecular sciences.”

Former recipients of the Roy G. Neville prize are Robert E. Schofield (2006), Michael D. Gordin (2007), William H. Brock (2009), Michael Hunter (2011), Mary Jo Nye (2013), Melvyn Usselman (2016), and John C. Powers (2017).

The Niels Bohr Archive warmly congratulates Helge Kragh on yet another important and well-deserved recognition of his scholarly work!

A press release by the Royal Danish Academy of the Sciences can be found here (in Danish).

Helge Kragh is Professor emeritus at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen and Associated Researcher at the Niels Bohr Archive.  He is a renowned historian of science and the author of numerous scholarly articles and books on the history of physics, cosmology, and chemistry, including An Introduction to the Historiography of Science (1989), Dirac: A Scientific Biography (1990), Cosmology and Controversy (1999), Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century (2002), and Conceptions of Cosmos: From Myths to the Accelerating Universe (2013). His most recent book is the first ever scientific biography of the Danish physicist Ludvig Lorenz (Ludvig Lorenz: A Nineteenth-Century Theoretical Physicist).