René Taton

René Taton (4 April 1915 – 9 August 2004) was a French mathematician, historian of science, and long co-chief-editor of the Revue d'histoire des sciences.

He was awarded both the highest lifetime achievement awards in the field of history of science: the George Sarton Medal, in 1975, and the Alexandre Koyré Medal, in 1997.

[1] In 1935, he became a student of École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud.

He was a mathematician before moving to the history of science, and in 1951 cemented the move by earning a doctorat d'état ès lettres with philosopher Gaston Bachelard as his advisor, focusing on the history of projective geometry; his primary thesis concerned the work of Gaspard Monge and his accessory thesis concerned Girard Desargues.

[2] He led the collective effort to write a Histoire generalé des sciences (English: General History of Science (last edition in 1996, PUF, Quadriga); also translated into Arabic, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish), a major reference in the field of history of science.