Mathematical Treasure: Karl Scherffer’s Institutionum Geometricarum

Karl Scherffer (1716–1783) was a Jesuit priest, mathematician and physicist who taught mathematics based on the results of Euler and Boscovich in Graz and Vienna. He was well respected in his time for his scientific knowledge and wrote several works in physics, optics, mechanics and mathematics. For instance, in 1770–1771 he published a four-volume Institutionum Geometricarum that guided readers through elementary geometry, trigonometry, conic sections, and higher-order algebraic curves. The title pages are shown below.

Digitizations of the four-volume set have been collected by the European Digital Mathematics Library.

Reference

Dadić, Žarko. 1989. The Contribution of Karl Scherffer in Spreading Bošković’s Scientific Results (in Croatian). Anali Zavoda za povijesne znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti u Dubrovniku 27: 133–121.

Index to Mathematical Treasures