Raoul Bricard (23 March 1870 – 26 November 1943) was a French engineer and a mathematician. He is best known for his work in geometry, especially descriptive geometry and scissors congruence, and kinematics, especially mechanical linkages.
Raoul Bricard | |
---|---|
Born | 23 March 1870 |
Died | 26 November 1943 | (aged 73)
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematics |
Bricard taught geometry at Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures. In 1908 he became a professor of applied geometry at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Paris.[1] In 1932 he received the Poncelet Prize in mathematics from the Paris Academy of Sciences for his work in geometry.[2]
In 1896 Bricard published a paper on Hilbert's third problem, even before the problem was stated by Hilbert.[3] In it he proved that mirror symmetric polytopes are scissors congruent, and proved a weak version of Dehn's criterion.
In 1897 Bricard published an important investigation on flexible polyhedra.[4] In it he classified all flexible octahedra, now known as Bricard octahedra.[5] This work was the subject of Henri Lebesgue's lectures in 1938.[6] Later Bricard discovered notable 6-bar linkages.[7][8]
Bricard also gave one of the first geometric proofs of Morley's trisector theorem in 1922.[9][10]
Bricard authored six books, including a mathematics survey in Esperanto.[11] He is listed in Encyclopedia of Esperanto.[12]