Desargues's concepts of involution and transversal, their origin, and possible sources of inspiration (Q2084277)

The article is an extensive investigation in the possible sources and motivations which form the background of Desargues' famous \textit{Brouillon project}. While its contents were deeply investigated in many studies before, not much is known about what inspired Desargues to write this exceptionally original text. The author shows how Desargues' scientific milieu, including the famous Mersenne's circle and the knowledge on conic sections of his time, influenced Desargues' ideas. The main contents start with a brief account of the first 18 pages of the \textit{Brouillon project} (which in total has 30 pages) in order to introduce Desargues' often unusual geometric terms. After that, in Sections 3 to 7, the author arguments on possible influences. Special care is given to the concepts of involution, transversal, polarity and others. Along the discussion of possible sources used by Desargues', the reader is also familiarized with some of his techniques. Thus, not only plausible answers about the possible motivations and inspirations are given, but also much of Desargues' thinking processes are disclosed. The paper ends with remarks and conclusions, and two appendices. Among the main conclusions are that the \textit{Brouillon project} is (as suggested by its title) not a finished work, but more like a rough draft on conic sections, that it shows that Desargues' was well acquainted with Apollonius' theory of conics, that he probably discovered much of the theory through experiments and drawings, and -- as the excerpts from his 1638 letter from Mersenne given in the second appendix show -- it seems that ``Desargues wanted to respond both to the old-fashioned treatment of conic sections of Mydorge's \textit{Prodromi}, and the novelty of the algebraic tools expounded in Decartes's \textit{Géometrié}'' (quoted from p. 614 of the article). To sum it up, this article is rich in content and discloses many new insights which are interesting and valuable for anyone interested in the history of mathematics in general, and the history of projective geometry in particular.