Florian Cajori

Abstract

Florian Cajori, the foremost writer on the history of mathematics in this country, and well known to the readers of THE MATHEMATICS TEACHER, died at his home in Berkeley, California, on August 14, 1930, of pneumonia. He was born in Switzerland, and came to this country at the age of sixteen. He attended the State Nonnal School at Whitewater, Wisconsin, took his college work at the state university, and received the degree of B.S. in 1883. He then spent a year and a half at Johns Hopkins University after which he was called to Tulane University as assistant professor of mathematics (1885-1887), becoming professor of applied mathematics in 1888. The following year he was employed in the Bureau of Education at Washington, and secured much of the material that entered into his first printed book, The Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890). In 1889 he went to Colorado College as professor of physics, assuming the professorship of mathematics the following year and continuing in this position for twenty years (1898-1918), serving also as dean of the department of engineering for fifteen years (1903-1918). He was then given the unique position of professor of the history of mathematics at the University of California, retiring as professor emeritus in 1929.