Gaspard Monge

Gaspard Monge (1746-1818), French mathematician, recognized as the inventor of descriptive geometry. He was born in Beaune and educated at the colleges of Beaune and Lyon and at the military school of Mézières. At 16 he was appointed professor of physics at Lyon, serving until 1765. Three years later he became professor of mathematics and in 1771 professor of physics at Mézières. He helped to found the École Polytechnique in 1794 and was professor of descriptive geometry there for more than ten years. His general theory of curvature of geometric surfaces established the basis for much of the subsequent work of the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss in this field.