Stillman Drake (December 24, 1910 – October 6, 1993),[1] an American historian of science who moved to Canada in 1967 and acquired Canadian citizenship a few years later, is best known for his work on Galileo Galilei (1569–1642).
[2] Drake earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy and was at UC Berkeley in the early 1930s for graduate mathematics but went to work in the financial sector.
[4] Drake received his first academic appointment in 1967 at the age of 57 as full professor at the University of Toronto after a career as a financial administrator in the World Bank system.
Drake showed how the complex interaction of experimental measurement and mathematical analysis led Galileo to his law of falling bodies.
Landon writes that "at a single stroke" his donation "transformed the strength and emphasis of the University Library and provided the basis for what has become one of the richest collections of early scientific works, from many countries and in many languages, in North America.