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Lazare Carnot is best known as a geometer. He published work in which sensed magnitudes were first systematically used.
Carnot was known as the 'organiser of victory' during the French Revolution. As a military engineer Carnot specialised in fortifications. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1791 and to the National Convention in 1792. He directed the Army of the North after April 1793.
He wrote his first mathematical work in 1784 on mechanics.
In 1794, under direction from Carnot and Monge, a 'grande école' was set up called 'École centrale des travaux publique' but its name was changed to 'École polytechnique' in the following year.
He became Napoleon Bonaparte's minister of war in 1800.
He is best known as a geometer. In 1801 he published De la correlation des figures de géométrie in which he tried to put pure geometry into a universal setting. He showed that several of the theorems of Euclid's Elements can be established from a single theorem.
In 1803 he published Géométrie de position in which sensed magnitudes were first systematically used in geometry. This work greatly extended his work of 1801.
His military masterpiece De la defense des places fortes was published in 1809. He later served as military governor of Antwerp but after Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo he went into exile.
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Tell me about Carnot's part in the development of group theory
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