History
The stereographic projection was known to Hipparchus, Ptolemy and probably earlier to the Egyptians. It was originally known as the planisphere projection. Planisphaerium by Ptolemy is the oldest surviving document that describes it. One of its most important uses was the representation of celestial charts. The term planisphere is still used to refer to such charts.
It is believed that the earliest existing world map created by Gualterious Lud of St Dié, Lorraine, in 1507 is based upon the stereographic projection, mapping each hemisphere as a circular disk. The equatorial aspect of the stereographic projection, commonly used for maps of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres in the 17th and 18th centuries (and 16th century - Jean Roze 1542; Rumold Mercator 1595), was utilised by the ancient astronomers like Ptolemy
François d'Aiguillon gave the stereographic projection its current name in his 1613 work Opticorum libri sex philosophis juxta ac mathematicis utiles (Six Books of Optics, useful for philosophers and mathematicians alike).
Read more about this topic: Stereographic Projection
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away oer empires and oer states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (17881824)
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (18741945)
“Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)