From Here to Infinity

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From Here to Infinity is written by Andrea Del Centina and published by Springer Nature. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 3031725859 (ISBN 10) and 9783031725852 (ISBN 13).

This monograph traces the development of projective geometry from its Greek origins to the early 20th century. It covers Renaissance perspective studies and insights from the late sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, examining the contributions of Desargues and Pascal. Most of the book is devoted to the evolution of the subject in the 19th century, from Carnot to von Staudt. In particular, the book offers an unusually thorough appreciation of Brianchon's work, a detailed study of Poncelet's innovations, and a remarkable account of the contributions of Möbius and Plücker. It also addresses the difficult question of the historical relationship between synthetic and analytic points of view in geometry, analyzing the work of prominent synthetic geometers Steiner, Chasles, and von Staudt in detail. The book concludes around 1930, after the synthetic point of view was axiomatized and the analytic point of view became intertwined with algebraic geometry. Balancing historical analysis with technical precision and providing deep insights into the evolution of the mathematics, this richly illustrated book serves as a central reference on the history of projective geometry.