Descriptive geometry in England: lost in translation

This chapter looks at the history of descriptive geometry in England, and why here it had such a short, and not a very fulfilling life. Having arrived to England in the immediate aftermath of the wars between England and France, its translation and attempts to introduce it into the educational system happened only after the 1840s. The lack of direct, implicit knowledge of the original technique, and some aspects of mistranslation, meant that the technique was never properly understood. Descriptive geometry is still mainly regarded as a drawing, rather than a mathematical technique in England, and has not been practised since the end of the nineteenth century. Polytechnic schools in England were another short-lived phenomena, and only of any significance and showing similarity with the French model in the second half of the twentieth century