Craig G. Fraser
 Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
Victoria  College
 University of Toronto
 Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K7 CANADA

Office: VC 322

Ph: 416-978-5135 
Email: cfraser at chass dot utoronto dot ca


 
             
                         Education

Research Interests
History of mathematics and mechanics; analysis from 1700, in particular the calculus of variations; foundations of mathematics; J.L. Lagrange, Leonhard Euler, Augustin Cauchy, Carl Gustav Jacobi, Adolph Mayer, Karl Weierstrass. Modern cosmology, interactions of theoretical and observational cosmology 1920-1965.

Selected Publications
“Augustin Louis Cauchy,” in the New Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume 2 (Scribners and Sons, 2008), pp. 75-79. The Cosmos A Historical Perspective (Greenwood, 2006), “Theoretical Cosmology and Observational Astronomy, Circa 1930,” in Mathematics in the Physical Sciences, 1650-2000, Ed. Niccolo Guicciardini et al., pp. 31-34, Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach Report No. 56 2005. “Leonhard Euler's 1744 book on the calculus of variations,” in Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics 1640-1940, Ed. I. Grattan-Guinness. 2005, Elsevier. pp. 168-180. “Joseph Louis Lagrange's 1797 Théorie des fonctions analytiques", in Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics 1640-1940, Ed. I. Grattan-Guinness. 2005, Elsevier. pp. 208-224. "Mathematics” in The Cambridge History of Science Volume 4 The Eighteenth Century (2003). “The Calculus of Variations: A Historical Survey,” in A History of Analysis, Ed. H. N. Jahnke, (American Mathematical Society, 2003), pp. 355-384. “The Origins and Early Development of Hamilton-Jacobi Theory” (with Michiyo Nakane), Centaurus (2002).“Mathematics” and “Modern Astronomy and Cosmology"; in The History of Modern Science and Mathematics Volumes 1 and 2 (Scribner’s and Son’s, 2002). "Die Genese der Variationsrechnung," in Geschichte der Analysis (Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, 1999); Calculus and Analytical Mechanics in the Age of Enlightenment (Variorum, 1997).

Publications and Selected Offprints


Editorial Work
Consulting editor, New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2008), Editor, Historia Mathematica (2000-2006) ; Mathematics editor, The History of Modern Science and Mathematics Volumes 1-4 (2002).

Professional Associations
Chairman, International Commission on the History of Mathematics
Elected member, International Academy of the History of Science
Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics, American Mathematical Society

Projects
History of the calculus of variations 1806-1917; concept of integral in Euler's analysis; history of complex analysis; foundations of Euclidean geometry; conceptual foundations of analysis; Hamilton-Jacobi theory; celestial dynamics since Laplace; relativistic cosmology in the 1920s and 1930s.

Graduate Courses
HPS5001H  Fundamentals of the History of Mathematics
HPS1052H Topics in the History of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Mathematics
HPS5009H Fundamentals of the History of Astronomy

Undergraduate Courses

HUM 199 History of Time
INX 199 History of Cosmology
HPS/MAT 390H History of Mathematics before 1700
HPS/MAT 391H History of Mathematics after 1700
HPS 360 History of Modern Cosmology
HPS 200 Scientific Revolutions

Events
25 Year Service Award
Presented by President David Naylor, January 27, 2009. In recognition of service to the University of Toronto


 

Book that inspired me
In the fall of 2009 the University of Toronto mounted a library exhibition titled "Books that inspire faculty". Included in this exhibition was a book that inspired me as a graduate student, Ernst Mach's The Science of Mechanics A Critical and Historical Account of Its Development, originally published in 1883. Here is a link to my blurb on the library website.





Hobbies
Running and cycling,
Watching films, Astronomy

 
 

 


 

Family
Alison, Amanda and four-legged Ruby