Past Biennial History of Astronomy Workshops

Regarding the “ND” abbreviation

At the Fourth Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop in 1999, a practice for referring to the workshops was adopted. Similar to the conferences on archaeoastronomy that retain the name “Oxford” (even as they move from site to site), we have chosen to maintain the name Notre Dame for the Biennial History of Astronomy Workshops. Therefore we have adopted the practice of referring to the workshop with the abbreviation “ND” with a Roman numeral added at the end to indicate which workshop we are referring to. Thus, for example, the Sixth Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop was referred to as “ND VI” (en-dee-six).

When this practice was adopted, it was not clear that the workshop would stay at Notre Dame. In the fall of 2000, then co-program chairs Steve Dick and Marc Rothenberg reached an agreement with the History and Philosophy of Science Program at Notre Dame in which the HPS program has agreed to continue to fund the workshops in the future. As a result, the site of the future workshops, and indeed its continued existence, seems to be on a secure footing.