Elizabeth Garber

Elizabeth Anne Garber (1939–2020) was an American historian of science known for her work on James Clerk Maxwell and the history of physics. She was a professor of history for many years at Stony Brook University.^[1]

Elizabeth Anne Wolfe was born in England in 1939.^[2] She studied mathematics, physics, and geology at the University of London. After moving to the United States and marrying physicist Donald Garber, she earned a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University with a dissertation on Maxwell. She became a faculty member at Stony Brook University, and retired in 2008.^[3]

Garber died from complications of Alzheimer's disease at home on July 1, 2020.^[2]

Garber was the author of:

• The Language of Physics: The Calculus and the Development of Theoretical Physics in Europe, 1750–1914 (Birkhäuser, 1999)^[4]

Garber co-edited several books collecting the works of James Clerk Maxwell:

• Maxwell on Saturn's Rings (edited with Stephen G. Brush and C. W. F. Everitt, MIT Press, 1983)^[5]
• Maxwell on Molecules and Gases (edited with Stephen G. Brush and C. W. F. Everitt, MIT Press, 1986)^[6]
• Maxwell on Heat and Statistical Mechanics: On "Avoiding All Personal Enquiries of Molecules" (edited with Stephen G. Brush and C. W. F. Everitt, Associated University Presses, 1995)^[7]

Garber also edited:

• Beyond History of Science: Essays in Honor of Robert E. Schofield (Lehigh University Press, 1990)^[8]

Garber was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1989 "for her research in the history of physics, including the development of kinetic theory and molecular science in the 19th century."^[9]