Abstract
This is a biography. It focus on Caspar Wessel's work as surveyor
under the auspices of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and
Letters, in particular on some of his theoretical investigations
of geodesy that lead him to use complex numbers to represent
directions in a plane at least as early as 1787. In 1797 his
mathematical paper "On the Analytical Representation of Direction.
An Attempt Applied Chiefly to Solving Plane and Spherical
Polygons" (in Danish) was accepted for publication in the
Collected Papers of the Academy. The articleis today recognised as
the first to contain the geometrical interpretation of the complex
numbers and their rules of composition.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Caspar Wessel. On the Analytical Representation of Direction. |
| Place of Publication | Copenhagen |
| Publisher | The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters |
| Publication date | 1999 |
| Publication status | Published - 1999 |
| Event | Wessel Symposium 1998 - The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen, Denmark Duration: 11 Aug 1998 → 15 Aug 1998 |
Conference
| Conference | Wessel Symposium 1998 |
|---|---|
| Location | The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters |
| Country/Territory | Denmark |
| City | Copenhagen |
| Period | 11/08/1998 → 15/08/1998 |