Nicolas-Auguste Tissot: a link between cartography and quasiconformal theory (Q2014261)

This article follows the hints of \textit{H. Grötzsch} [Ber. Verh. Sächs. Akad. Wiss. Leipz. Math.-Phys. Kl. 82, 69--80 (1930; JFM 56.0298.02)] and \textit{O. Teichmüller} [Abh. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Math.-Nat. Kl. 1939, No. 22, 197 p. (1940; Zbl 0024.33304); translation in: A. Papadopoulos (ed.), Handbook of Teichmüller theory. Volume V. Zürich: European Mathematical Society (EMS). 321--483 (2016; Zbl 1344.30044)] at Nicolas-Auguste Tissot as a precursor of the theory of quasiconformal mappings. Some material on his life is compiled, as well as his contributions to cartography on the basis of his ``Sur les cartes géographiques'' [C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris 49, 673--676 (1859); ibid. 50, 474--476, 964--969 (1860)] and [Nouv. Ann. Math. (2) 17, 49--55, 145--163, 351--367 (1878; JFM 10.0557.01); ibid. 18, 337--356, 385--397, 532--548 (1879; JFM 11.0601.01); ibid. 19, Suppl., 1--40 (1880; JFM 12.0632.01); incorporated into the homonymous Mémoire sur la représentation des surfaces et les projections des cartes géographiques. Paris: Gauthier-Villars (1881)]: he describes the representation of a given country on a map as a local orthogonal projection from one surface (the Earth's) onto the other (the map) after having put the two surfaces in an adequate position (the reviewer proposes to specify this better by adding at the end of line \(-17\) on page 325 of the author's free translation: ``around the tangent associated to the maximal ratio of lengths of the corresponding infinitesimal elements''), followed by a scaling. Then, he proposes criteria for the best mode of projecting a given country on a map and provides formulas for such modes (the formulas on page 329 correspond to the case of a ``portion of the globe of little extension w.r.t.\ the parallels''). The reception of this work by \textit{G. Darboux} [Bull. Sci. Math. (2) 35, 55--64 (1911; JFM 42.0712.03)] is also presented, as well as the definition of ``almost analytic functions'' (quasiconformal mappings) by \textit{M. Lavrentieff} [C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris 200, 1010--1012 (1935; Zbl 0012.21501); Mat. Sb. 42, 407--423 (1935; Zbl 0014.31905)], ``close to the ideas of Tissot''. The reviewer feels that a careful assessment of Tissot's contributions to mathematical geography is yet to come, e.g.\ of the two projections attributed to Tissot by \textit{J. P. Snyder} [Flattening the Earth: two thousand years of map projections. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1993), pp. 152, 154].