[Islamsci] Richard Lorch: 1942-2021

[Charles Burnett]

Dear Benno and friends,

I am very sorry to hear of the death of Richard Lorch. I am sorry not to have made an effort to visit him after his return to England. We were looking forward to seeing him at the Warburg Institute on the occasion of the conference on Ptolemy's Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages in 2015, but unfortunately his state of health prevented him from coming. He will be remembered, not only for the valuable editions and translations of astronomical texts that he provided, but also for his gentleness, his modesty, and his always being ready to offer a warming glass of wine or somethings stronger, in the cold Munich winters.

Best wishes,

Charles
________________________________
From: Islamsci <islamsci-bounces at list.bowdoin.edu> on behalf of Benno van Dalen <bvdalen at ptolemaeus.badw.de>
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2021 1:11 PM
To: CHOSTIS mailing list <islamsci at list.bowdoin.edu>
Subject: [Islamsci] Richard Lorch: 1942-2021


Dear colleagues,

Dear friends,

It is with great sadness that we inform you that Richard Lorch died peacefully at the age of 78 in Warwick Hospital in Warwick, England last Wednesday, 17 February 2021. He had had Parkinson disease for more than ten years. On 26 January he broke his hip when he fell in his flat. He received a hip replacement in the hospital, but did not any more recover. His closest relatives were able to be with him during his last hours.

Richard Lorch was born on 13 June 1942 in Gravesend on the river Thames, just east of London. He received his BA in mathematics in 1964, and his MA in history and philosophy of science in 1965, both from St. Johns College in Oxford. In 1971 he was awarded the PhD degree by Manchester University for a dissertation entitled Jābir ibn Aflah and his Influence in the West‎. Mathematics and astronomy in the Arabic-Islamic world and its influence in Europe also remained the focus of his research during the following decades. Lorch had a one-year position at Birzeit University near Ramallah (Palestine) and spent two years at the Institute for the History of Arabic Science in Aleppo (Syria). The remainder of his academic career he spent in Munich. Besides five years in the Kepler project of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, he worked in a series of projects that were funded by various German societies and were hosted at the Oriental Institute and later by the Chair for History of Science of Ludwig Maximilian University.


Richard Lorch's most important publications consisted of editions of Arabic and Latin texts with mathematical commentaries. His books included The Melon-Shaped Astrolabe in Arabic Astronomy (1999, with Kennedy and Kunitzsch); Thābit ibn Qurra. On the Sector-Figure and Related Texts (2001); Al-Farghānī. On the Astrolabe (2005), and, together with Paul Kunitzsch, Theodosius, Sphaerica. Arabic and Medieval Latin Translations (2011). A selection of his articles were reprinted in the Variorum volume Arabic Mathematical Sciences: Instruments, Texts, Transmission (1995).


Menso Folkerts
Benno van Dalen

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