Moritz Cantor facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Moritz Cantor
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Moritz Cantor
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| Born | 23 August 1829 |
| Died | 10 April 1920 (aged 90) |
| Nationality | German |
| Alma mater | University of Heidelberg |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | History of mathematics |
| Doctoral students | Karl Bopp |
Moritz Benedikt Cantor (born August 23, 1829 – died April 10, 1920) was an important German historian of mathematics. This means he studied and wrote about the history of numbers, shapes, and how people solved math problems throughout time. He is famous for writing a very detailed history of mathematics that covered many centuries.
Contents
A Young Math Historian
Moritz Cantor was born in Mannheim, Germany. His family came from Portugal and had moved to the Netherlands. When he was very young, Moritz was not strong enough to go to a regular school. So, his parents taught him at home.
Later, he joined an advanced class at the Gymnasium in Mannheim. After that, he went to the University of Heidelberg in 1848. He also studied at the University of Göttingen. There, he learned from famous mathematicians like Gauss. A teacher named Stern helped him become very interested in historical research.
His Studies and Early Career
Moritz Cantor earned his PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1851. After that, he went to Berlin to attend lectures by Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet. When he returned to Heidelberg in 1853, he became a privat-docent at the university. This was a special kind of lecturer who taught but was not yet a full professor.
In 1863, he became an assistant professor. Then, in 1877, he was made an honorary professor. This showed how much his work was valued.
Contributions to Mathematics History
Moritz Cantor helped start a journal called Kritische Zeitschrift für Chemie, Physik und Mathematik. In 1859, he also became an editor for the Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik. He was in charge of the history and literature parts of this journal.
From 1877, thanks to his efforts, a special supplement to the Zeitschrift was published. It was called Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Mathematik, which means "Essays on the History of Mathematics."
His Greatest Work
Cantor's most important work was a huge book series called Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik. This title means "Lectures on the History of Mathematics." It was a very complete history of math, published in several volumes:
- Volume 1 (1880) - Covered history from the earliest times until the year 1200.
- Volume 2 (1892) - Covered history from 1200 to 1668.
- Volume 3 (1894-1896) - Covered history from 1668 to 1758.
- Volume 4 (1908) - Covered history from 1759 to 1799. For this volume, Cantor worked with nine other people, but he was the main editor.
Many historians believe that Moritz Cantor helped create a new way of studying the history of mathematics. He brought careful, honest, and critical methods to this field, which had not always been studied so thoroughly before.
In 1900, Moritz Cantor was given a great honor. He was asked to give a main speech at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. His speech was about how the history of mathematics should be written.
See also
In Spanish: Moritz Cantor para niños
