◀ ▲ ▶History / 18th-century / Person: Dupin, Pierre Charles François
Person: Dupin, Pierre Charles François
Charles Dupin made contributions to differential geometry and in particular invented the 'Dupin indicatrix'.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Dupin was educated at the École Polytechnique in Paris, where he learnt geometry from Monge.
- While an undergraduate he made his famous discovery of what are called today 'Dupin's cyclides' guided in this work by Monge.
- It took him a while to recover from the illness, but Dupin was not idle while recovering in Pisa.
- Other contributions to differential geometry which occur in this work include his invention of the 'Dupin indicatrix' which gives an indication of the local behaviour of a surface up to the terms of degree two.
- The year 1813 saw Dupin elected to the Institut de France, the new organisation set up to replace the Académie des Sciences after the French Revolution.
- With the reestablishment of the Académie des Sciences, Dupin was elected to that body in 1818.
- Dupin was appointed professor at Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris in 1819.
- These lectures proved extremely popular, mainly since Dupin was an exceptional lecturer.
Born 6 October 1784, Varzy, France. Died 18 January 1873, Paris, France.
View full biography at MacTutor
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
-
- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
