The Curves The Point of View of Max Noether Probably the oldest references to the problem of resolution of singularities are found in Max Noether's works on plane curves cf. 148], 149]]. And probably the origin of the problem was to have a formula to compute the genus of a plane curve. The genus is the most useful birational invariant of a curve in classical projective geometry. It was long known that, for a plane curve of degree n having l m ordinary singular points with respective multiplicities ri, i E {1, . . ., m}, the genus p of the curve is given by the formula = (n - l)(n - 2) _...