Moritz Benedikt Cantor (23 August 1829 – 10 April 1920) was a German historian of mathematics.

Biography

Cantor was born at

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (), is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, second-largest city in Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, the States of Ger ...

. He came from a Sephardi Jewish family that had emigrated to the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

from

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, another branch of which had established itself in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. In his early youth, Moritz Cantor was not strong enough to go to school, and his parents decided to educate him at home. Later, however, he was admitted to an advanced class of the Gymnasium in Mannheim. From there he went to the University of Heidelberg in 1848, and soon after to the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

, where he studied under

Gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; ; ; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician, astronomer, Geodesy, geodesist, and physicist, who contributed to many fields in mathematics and science. He was director of the Göttingen Observat ...

and Weber, and where Stern awakened in him a strong interest in historical

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

. After obtaining his PhD at the University of Heidelberg in 1851, he went to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, where he eagerly followed the lectures of Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet; and upon his return to Heidelberg in 1853, he was appointed privat-docent at the university. In 1863, he was promoted to the position of assistant professor, and in 1877 he became honorary professor. Cantor was one of the founders of the ''Kritische Zeitschrift für Chemie, Physik und Mathematik''. In 1859 he became associated with Schlömilch as editor of the ''Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik'', taking charge of the historical and literary section. Since 1877, through his efforts, a supplement to the ''Zeitschrift'' was published under the separate title of ''Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Mathematik''. Cantor's inaugural dissertation, "Über ein weniger gebräuchliches Coordinaten-System" (1851), gave no indication that the history of exact sciences would soon be enriched by a master work by him. His first important work was "Über die Einführung unserer gegenwärtigen Ziffern in Europa", which he wrote for the ''Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik'', 1856, vol. i. His greatest work was ''Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik''. This comprehensive history of mathematics appeared as follows: * Volume 1 (1880) - ''From the earliest times until 1200'' * Volume 2 (1892) - ''From 1200 to 1668'' * Volume 3 (1894-1896) - ''From 1668 to 1758'' * Volume 4 (1908) (with nine collaborators, Cantor as editor) - ''From 1759 to 1799'' Many historians credit him for founding a new discipline in a field that had hitherto lacked the sound, conscientious, and critical methods of other fields of history. In 1900 Moritz Cantor received the honor of giving a plenary address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in

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(''Sur l'historiographie des mathématiques'').

References

Sources

* ''Jewish Encyclopedia'', 1906

External links

* Florian Cajori
Moritz Cantor, ''The historian of mathematics''
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 26 (1920), pp. 21–28. * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cantor, Moritz 1829 births 1920 deaths 19th-century German mathematicians 20th-century German mathematicians German historians of mathematics Heidelberg University alumni University of Göttingen alumni German Sephardi Jews Scientists from Mannheim People from the Grand Duchy of Baden Mathematicians from the German Empire