Benjamin Fedorovich Kagan (1869 - 1953)

* 10 March 1869, † 8 May 1953

Benjamin Fedorovich Kagan was born on 10 March 1869 in Shavli, Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania). Kagan worked on the foundations of geometry and his first work was on Lobachevsky’s geometry. In 1902 he proposed axioms and definitions very different from Hilbert. Kagan studied tensor differential geometry after going to Moscow because of an interest in relativity. He wrote a history of non-euclidean geometry and also a detailed biography of Lobachevsky. He edited Lobachevsky’s complete works which appeared in five volumes between 1946 and 1951. Benjamin Fedorovich Kagan died on 8 May 1953 in Moscow, USSR.