Olaf Pedersen

After an operation on his heart, Olaf Pedersen died December 3, 1997.

Pedersen described his take on the history of European universities in The First Universities (1997), which received several scholarly reviews:

On the other hand, Ruth Karras wrote, "this book begins, not as a history of universities, but as a history of learning." Her opinion was that a "more balanced view for both medievalists and non-specialists" was provided by volume one of A History of the University in Europe (1992), edited by Hilde Ridder-Symoens. Marcia L. Colish described the book as "a superficial and shaky sketch of what universities actually taught. He emphasizes the organization, not the content of education." Colish finds Pedersen prone to "repeat and compound factual errors more recently given the decent burial they deserve." She suggests other, more reliable, authorities.

In 1974 Pedersen collaborated with Pihl Mogens to write Early Physics and Astronomy: A Historical Introduction where they speculated about a Latin translation of Ptolemy's Almagest by Boethius that has been lost: "Had it been preserved, Latin astronomy would not have been compelled to start with a delay of more than 700 years." (page 188) Reviewer George Saliba commented, "One would prefer that such statements were not written, for they reflect on a vision of history that makes the development of science depend on such haphazard accidents,..."

Pedersen also published An Introduction to the Almagest (1974).

A balanced review was given by H. E. J. Cowdrey: "Perhaps the most valuable chapters of the book are those which concern the classical inheritance of medieval higher education and the transition from ancient science to monistic learning." On the other hand, Cowdrey notes a "disconcerting number of factual errors", "too much attention is given to relatively unimportant topics", and "very little account indeed has been taken of scholarly work published since the early 1970s."

In 1965 a department for history of science was formed at Aarhus. "The staff of the department, including Pedersen, taught science as well as history of science, and though this diluted their research it kept them in contact with science and maintained their bona fides among science colleagues." In 1967 Pedersen became a professor in this department.

In 1956 the Munksgaard publishing house issued a 290 page volume for Acta historica scientariarum naturalium et medicinalium (volume #13) on Nicole Oresme: Nicole Oresme og hans naturfilosofiske system: en undersogelse af hans skrift "Le livre du ciel et du monde".

Olaf Pedersen was born in Egtved, Jutland, Denmark. At the University of Copenhagen he studied in Niels Bohr’s institute, graduating in 1943 when the country was occupied by German forces. He began his teaching career in Randers, Jutland, teaching physics. He entered scholarship studying the philosophy and history of ideas. After the war he studied with Etienne Gilson in Paris. Returning to Denmark, he obtained a doctorate for work on Nicole Oresme in 1956, when he became a lecturer at Aarhus University.

Olaf Pedersen (8 April 1920 – 3 December 1997) was a Danish historian of science who was "leading authority on astronomy in classical antiquity and the Latin middle ages."