Carnot's theory of transversals and its applications by Servois and Brianchon: the awakening of synthetic geometry in France
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Carnot's theory of transversals and its applications by Servois and Brianchon: the awakening of synthetic geometry in France
zbMATH Open document ID: 1484.01008
published in: Archive for History of Exact Sciences
publication date: 2022-01-21T00:00:00Z
review text: The paper is devoted to a presentation and discussion of the achievements by Carnot, Servois and Brianchon, which brought a renewal of synthetic geometry in France. In particular, the author discusses the main theorems pertaining to Carnot's theory of transversals, their initial reception by Servois, and the applications that Brianchon made of them to the theory of conic sections. Brief biographical notes preceding the presentation of the works of Monge, Carnot, Servois and Brianchon are provided. These notes link some of their personal stories as politicians, or soldiers, to their mathematical work, and underline the role of the Ecole Polytechnique, and of military schools, in the process of renewal of geometry in France during the Napoleonic Era.
reviewed by: Roman Murawski
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A55
zbMATH DE Number: 7461128
zbMATH Keywords: synthetic geometry
zbMATH Keywords: theory of transversals
author: A. Del Centina
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: s00407-021-00276-1
OpenAlex ID: W3169474470
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DOI: 10.1007/S00407-021-00276-1
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 7461128