Definition:Point at Infinity/Historical Note
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Historical Note on Point at Infinity
The idea of a point at infinity was introduced by Johannes Kepler, who suggested that a parabola might be considered as an ellipse with one focus at infinity.
The idea was developed by Girard Desargues when he put his ideas of projective geometry together.
This assumed the existence of an ideal point at infinity.
Sources
- 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): infinity $(2)$
- 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): infinity $(2)$