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Jakob Steiner: Quick Facts

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Facts

Born March 18, 1796 • Switzerland
Died April 1, 1863 (aged 67) • Bern • Switzerland
Subjects Of Study Steiner surface

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Steiner surface. It was during a trip to Rome in 1844 that Jakob Steiner first discovered the fourth-degree surface that today bears his name; for this reason it is sometimes referred to as the Roman surface. Each of its tangent planes has the characteristic property that it intersects the surface in a pair of conics. The Steiner surface also contains three double lines that meet one another in a triple point. Steiner never published these and other findings concerning the surface. A colleague, Karl Weierstrass, first published a paper on the surface and Steiner's results in 1863, the year of Steiner's death.
What is the Steiner surface?
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