Gaspard Monge in the context of "École polytechnique"

École polytechnique (French pronunciation: [ekɔl pɔlitɛknik], lit. 'Polytechnic School'; also known as Polytechnique or l'X [liks]) is a grande école located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris.

The school was founded in 1794 by mathematician Gaspard Monge during the French Revolution and was militarized under Napoleon I in 1804. It is still supervised by the French Ministry of Armed Forces. Originally located in the Latin Quarter in central Paris, the institution moved to Palaiseau in 1976, in the Paris-Saclay technology cluster.

Descriptive geometry is the branch of geometry which allows the representation of three-dimensional objects in two dimensions by using a specific set of procedures. The resulting techniques are important for engineering, architecture, design and in art. The theoretical basis for descriptive geometry is provided by planar geometric projections.

The earliest known publication on the technique was "Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt" (Observation of the measurement with the compass and spirit level), published in Linien, Nuremberg: 1525, by Albrecht Dürer. Italian architect Guarino Guarini was also a pioneer of projective and descriptive geometry, as is clear from his Placita Philosophica (1665), Euclides Adauctus (1671) and Architettura Civile (1686—not published until 1737). Gaspard Monge (1746–1818) is usually credited with the invention of descriptive geometry, called the "father of descriptive geometry" due to his developments in geometric problem solving. His first discoveries were in 1765 while he was working as a draftsman for military fortifications, although his findings were published later on.