Jean-Paul Brasselet
Summary: The concept of polar variety is used now in several branches of mathematics; in geometry,
topology and especially in theory of singularities. Its origin is however not very well known.
Knowing the origin of a concept makes it possible to use it better, in particular through judicious
examples.
The course will begin with the results obtained by Pascal and the precursors, in particular Monge,
Poncelet, Severi, Todd... It will therefore present an introduction to projective geometry and to
the notion of polar variety, going to characteristic classes.