Did you know that...?

Descriptive Geometry was discovered by Gaspard Monge, a French mathematician. He developed this technique, versions of which were known to stone-masons centuries before Monge.



Born 1746 in Beaune, died 1818 in Paris, France

Monge is best remembered as the man who both invented a technique on which all the modern graphical communication is based and initiated a fundamental change in the teaching of such subjects. He was born in Beaune, in May of 1746, son of a small tradesman. The background to his understanding of mathematical concepts is largely explicable by the general development of mathematical education in France at the time.

As a young man, Monge attended school of Oratoriens based in Lyons. When he was 17, he came home during the summer, and with a help of an unidentified friend, made a map of the town of such quality that a place at l'École Royale du Génie de Mézières was offered to him. He spent the next few years in the drafting office of the École working mainly on the drawings of fortification designs. Monge used the technique which he later developed and called Descriptive Geometry for the first time when he was only about 18 years of age.

And now...

Look at Monge's diagram. Can you work out what how many planes intersect there? What is the label of the line that describes their intersection?