Franz Woepcke

Who was Franz Woepcke?

Franz Woepcke was an historian, Orientalist and mathematician. He is remembered for publishing editions and translations of medieval Arabic mathematical manuscripts, and for his research on the propagation of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in the medieval era.

Woepcke was born in Dessau in Germany. He studied mathematics at the University of Berlin, gaining his doctorate in 1847. With astronomer Johann Franz Encke and archaeologist Ernst Heinrich Tölken as his academic advisors, he penned his dissertation involving sundials of antiquity. Afterwards he studied Arabic language at the University of Bonn, where in 1850 he obtained his habilitation. Woepcke spent much of his subsequent career studying and working outside of Germany, particularly in Paris. Most of his output was written in French. In 1856 he returned to Berlin and taught classes at the "Französischen Gymnasium" until 1858. He died in Paris on March 25, 1864 at the age of 37.