author
Florian Cajori
1859–1930
A pioneering historian of mathematics, he helped turn the story of numbers, symbols, and scientific ideas into a subject readers could follow with real curiosity. His books remain well known for tracing how mathematical notation and thought developed over time.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Switzerland in 1859, Florian Cajori moved to the United States as a teenager and went on to build a career as a teacher, mathematician, and historian of science. He studied in Wisconsin, spent time at Johns Hopkins, and later taught at Tulane University, Colorado College, and the University of California, Berkeley.
Cajori is best remembered for making the history of mathematics accessible and serious at the same time. His best-known works explored the history of mathematical notation and the broader development of mathematics and physics, helping readers see familiar symbols and ideas as the result of a long human story.
He died in 1930 in Berkeley, California. More than a century later, he is still widely recognized as one of the early major historians of mathematics in the English-speaking world.