STAUDT, KARL GEORGE CHRISTIAN VON

born Jan. 24, 1798, Rothenburg died June 1, 1867, Erlangen, Bavaria German mathematician who developed the first complete theory of imaginary points, lines, and planes in projective geometry. Staudt was professor of mathematics at the Polytechnic School at Nrnberg from 1827 to 1835, when he was appointed to the staff of the University of Erlangen. He found a way to construct a regular inscribed polygon of 17 sides using only compasses and created a geometry of position, independent of all measurement. He also worked on the arithmetical properties of Bernoulli numbers, and the Von StaudtClausen theorem is named in part for him. Among his works are Geometrie der Lage (1847; The Geometry of Projection) and Beitrge zur Geometrie der Lage (185660; The Basis of Projective Geometry).