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Caspar Wessel
Sign in to saveDanish–Norwegian mathematician and cartographer (1745–1818)
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1745-06-08 ) 8 June 1745, Vestby , Denmark–Norway (now Norway)
- Died
- 25 March 1818 (1818-03-25) (aged 72), Copenhagen , Denmark
- Alma mater
- University of Copenhagen
- Known for
- Complex numbers , Complex plane , Vectors
- Partner
- Cathrine Elisabeth Brinck f. Müller
- Awards
- Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog
- Fields
- Mathematics
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Caspar
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Danish Realm
- Place of birth
- Vestby Municipality
- Place of death
- Copenhagen
- Occupation
- geodesist
- Educated at
- Oslo Cathedral School
- Languages spoken
- Danish
- Field of work
- geodesy
Show 7 more facts
- date of birth
- 1745-06-08
- date of death
- 1818-03-25
- name in native language
- Caspar Wessel
- Commons category
- Caspar Wessel
- maintained by WikiProject
- WikiProject Mathematics
- place of burial
- Assistens Cemetery
- has works in the collection
- Het Scheepvaartmuseum
via Wikidata · CC0
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Caspar Wessel (8 June 1745 – 25 March 1818) was a Danish–Norwegian mathematician and cartographer. In 1799, Wessel was the first person to describe the geometrical interpretation of complex numbers as points in the complex plane and vectors.
Biography
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Caspar Wessel” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.