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Gabriel Cramer, born at Geneva in 1704, and died at Bagnols in 1752, was professor at Geneva. The work by which he is best known is his treatise on algebraic curves published in 1750, which, as far as it goes, is fairly complete; it contains the earliest demonstration that a curve of the nth degree is in general determined if 1/2n(n+3) points on it be given. This work is still sometimes read. Besides this, he edited the works of the two elder Bernoullis; and wrote on the physical cause of the spheroidal shape of the planets and the motion of their apses, 1730, and on Newton's treatment of cubic curves, 1746.
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