David Wehlau (Queen’s University and RMC)
Date
Thursday February 1, 20245:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Location
Jeffery Hall, Room 118Event Category
Math Club
Thursday, February 1st, 2024
Time: 5:30 p.m. Place: Jeffery Hall, Room 118
Speaker: David Wehlau (Queen’s University and Royal Military College)
Title: Pascal's Hexagrammum Mysticum: Solving a 400-Year-Old Geometry Problem
Abstract: In 1639, the 16 year old Blaise Pascal proved his Hexagrammum Mysticum Theorem which provides a straightedge construction to test whether 6 points in the plane lie on a conic. This naturally led to the question of whether there is a straightedge construction which tests whether there is a cubic curve through 10 given points in the plane. I will discuss my joint solution with former Queen's mathematics undergraduate Dr. Will Traves (US Naval Academy) to this problem explaining some of the history.