Florian Cajori (February 28, 1859 in St Aignan (near Thusis), Graubünden, Switzerland—August 15, 1930, Berkeley, California) was one of the most celebrated historians of mathematics in his day.

Biography

Florian Cajori emigrated to the United States at the age of sixteen. He received a Ph.D. at Tulane University, where he taught for a few years before being driven north by his health. He taught at Colorado College, where he founded the Colorado College Scientific Society. Even today his History of Mathematical Notations (1928-29) has been described as "unsurpassed."[1] In 1918, he was appointed to a specially created chair in history of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. He remained in Berkeley, California until his death in 1930.

His last work was revising Motte's Translation of Newton's Principia, vol.1 The Motion of Bodies, but he died before it was finished. The work was finished by R.T.Crawford of Berkeley, California.

See also

* Cajori

Notes and references

* Cajori, Florian. "The History of Notations of the Calculus." Annals of Mathematics, 2nd Ser., Vol. 25, No. 1 (Sep., 1923), pp. 1-46
* Cajori, Florian (1993) [1928-1929]. A History of Mathematical Notations. Dover Publications. ISBN 0486677664. http://books.google.com/?id=7juWmvQSTvwC&printsec=frontcover.

1. ^ Colorado College page on Florian Cajori.

External links

* O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Florian Cajori", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Cajori.html .
* Florian Cajori at the Mathematics Genealogy Project