1788-1867

French Mathematician

Jean-Victor Poncelet was one of the founders of projective geometry. He was born on July 1, 1788, in Metz, France, and grew up to become an officer in Napoleon's army. As a lieutenant of engineers in 1812, he was badly wounded during the Russian campaign and left behind at Krasnoy, where he was thought to be dead. Instead, he was taken prisoner and remained at a camp in Saratov until 1814, when he returned to France. During his two years in prison, Poncelet busied himself with an intensive study of projective geometry—a facet of mathematics dealing with relationships between geometric figures and the projected images (or mappings).

Poncelet went on to study military engineering at Metz (1815-25) and soon became a professor of mechanics at the Ecole d'Application there (1825-35). In 1826, by applying mathematics to working functions of turbines and water wheels, he proposed a design...