Karl Georg Christian von Staudt

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Karl Georg Christian von Staudt

1798-1867

German mathematician and astronomer who did important work in the branch of mathematics known as projective geometry. His Geometrie der Lage, published in 1847, helped to free projective geometry from any metrical basis, and further work presented geometric solutions to quadratic equations. Staudt also determined the orbit of a comet while working on his doctorate. He was a professor at the Polytechnic School at Nuremberg and, later, at the University of Erlangen.