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Descriptive geometry in England: lost in translation. (English) Zbl 1441.01007

Barbin, Évelyne (ed.) et al., Descriptive geometry, the spread of a polytechnic art. The legacy of Gaspard Monge. Cham: Springer. Int. Stud. Hist. Math. Teach., 313-335 (2019).
This paper is about the intriguing history of descriptive geometry in England. Attempts to introduce Monge’s theory seriously were only made in the second half of the 19th century, and in the 20th century the interest disappeared. There seem to be several reasons for this, but the result was that in England Monge’s descriptive geometry was never fully understood. Yet mathematics in England flourished and, of course there was an interest in technical drawing. The author discusses, for example, the technique resembling descriptive geometry that was introduced by the architect and mathematician Peter Nicholson (1765–1844).
For the entire collection see [Zbl 1426.01003].

MSC:

01A55 History of mathematics in the 19th century
51-03 History of geometry
51N05 Descriptive geometry

Biographic References:

Nicholson, Peter
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Full Text: DOI Link

References:

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