The Swiss mathematician Jakob Steiner (1796 1863) came from a poor background with an incomplete education, yet such was his mathematical talent that eventually the Prussian university system adapted itself to him rather than he to it. A geometer in an age dominated by analysts, he pursued his own interests in his own way. The elegant results which bear his name - including Steiner circles, systems and symmetrisation - are known to most mathematicians today. Considered by many to be the greatest geometer since Apollonius of Perga, Steiner did important work on systemising geometry, laying the...

The Swiss mathematician Jakob Steiner (1796 1863) came from a poor background with an incomplete education, yet such was his mathematical talent that eventually the Prussian university system adapted itself to him rather than he to it. A geometer in an age dominated by analysts, he pursued his own interests in his own way. The elegant results which bear his name - including Steiner circles, systems and symmetrisation - are known to most mathematicians today. Considered by many to be the greatest geometer since Apollonius of Perga, Steiner did important work on systemising geometry, laying the...