HISTORY OF SCIENCE 26-1988-Parshall - The Art of Algebra From Al-Khwarizmi To Viete PDF

Hist. sa..
xxvi (1988)
THE ART OF ALGEBRA FROM AL-KHWARIZMI TO VlETE:

A STUDY IN THE NATURAL SELECTION OF IDEAS
Karen Hunger Parshall

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
I. INTRODUCTION
Traditionally, historians of mathematics have most often adopted a presentis-

tic approach to their subject. From the vantage point of the state of the
discipline in their own times, they have tended to portray the development of
mathematics as fundamentally linear in nature. In other words, looking back
into mathematical history, they have picked and chosen from among the
various contributions and constructed a logical, straight line progression from
the past to the present. This kind of history serves to anchor contemporary
mathematics in the past by providing it with a clear sense of direction, but at
the same time it profoundly distorts the view of the mathematical climate at
any given time in history. In the search for predecessors of a particular type of
equation, theorem, or idea, other concepts which may have been of prime
importance to the authors under scrutiny tend to be ignored or trivialized.
Furthermore, competing approaches and underlying philosophies often fall
into total obscurity. Thus, relative to the goal of reconstructing the dynamics
of mathematics at a particular point in time, the traditional historical method
falls short. This end may be more nearly met, however, by regarding
mathematics as the result of the natural selection of ideas.
Suppose that at any given time and place, we define the mathematical
environment as the known body of mathematical facts, techniques, theories,
and ideas together with the mathematicians who deal with them. Within this
context, every idea which presents itself, whether new or newly rediscovered,
effects a change in the environment. Thus, the individual mathematician, by
generating new ideas, by remaining ignorant of an idea, or by failing to absorb
an idea, shapes the particular niche within which his or her own theories
develop.
A particular mathematician's theory relative to a given mathematical
question inherits largely the characteristics of the theories of that mathemati-
cian's immediate predecessors. Yet a given theory may present individual
variations which occur as the result of the introduction of the mathematician's
new ideas. Those individual variations which in any way favour the theory,
whether by clarifying some fact, however small, or by correcting some point,
0073-2753/88/2602-0129/$2.50 © 1988 Science History Publications Ltd

130· KAREN HUNGER PARSHALL
however minor, will make the theory more fit and so will be naturally selected.
The successive accumulation of individual differences through the natural
selection of ideas yields a variety which differs more and more from its parent-
theory. Then, as different varieties of theories interbreed through the combi-
nation, reorganization, and introduction of ideas, and as natural selection acts
upon the favourable variations which result, the varieties may gradually
develop into clear and distinct species of mathematical theories. If at any time
during the evolutionary process, however, a variation, that is, an idea or an
approach occurs which is neither useful nor injurious, it would persist
essentially unaltered until changes in the mathematical environment rendered
it either advantageous or disadvantageous. Viewed with respect to this kind of
an evolutionary framework, what the modern mathematician and some
historians might regard as the false starts, ill-conceived techniques, and
imperfectly formed theories of the past, actually appear as intermediate steps
in the evolutionary process of descent with modification.
The development of algebra from al-Khwarizmi to Viete provides a good
test case for this model of the natural selection of ideas. In the sixteenth
century, algebra became the stage for the confrontation of the more or less
continuous and adapting Arabic line of al-Khwarizmi (c. 80o-c. 847) and the
previously latent but newly rediscovered approach of Diophantus of Alexan-
dria (fl. A.D. 250). Writing at midcentury, Girolamo Cardano (1501-76)
opened his Ars magna by declaring algebra's indebtedness to the Arab world..
He asserted that "this art originated with Mahomet the son of Moses the Arab
[i.e., al-Khwarizmi]" and proceeded to expound the findings of al-Khwarizmi
and his successors in the Arabic line of descent. By the end of the century,
though, this Arabic approach to algebra no longer held sway. Long neglected
manuscripts of Diophantus's Arithmetica had come to light, and mathemati-
cians like Raphael Bombelli (1526-72) and Francois Viete (1540-1603) not
only absorbed the ideas presented there but also recognized the Arithmetica as
a mathematical work significantly different from the usual Arabic-inspired
text. In his In artem analyticem isagoge of 1591, Viete clearly expressed his
humanistic desire to purge algebra of its Arabic corruptions and to return it to
a more pristine state inspired by the classical Greeks. He bade his readers:
Behold, the art which I present is new, but in truth so old, so spoiled and
defiled by the barbarians, that I considered it necessary, in order to
introduce an entirely new form into it, to think out and publish a new
vocabulary, having gotten rid of all its pseudotechnical terms lest it should
retain its filth and continue to stink in the old way, but since till now ears
have been little accustomed to them, it will be hardly avoidable that many
will be offended and frightened away at the very threshold. And yet
underneath the Algebra or Almucabala which they lauded and called "the
THE ART OF ALGEBRA . 131
great art", all Mathematicians recognized that incomparable gold lay

hidden, though they used to find little ... our art [i.e., the analytical art of
algebra] is the surest finder of all things mathematical.i..'
In this paper, we interpret the development of the Arabic, algebraic line from
the time of al-Khwarizmi to the sixteenth century in light of an evolutionary
framework and examine the way in which natural selection may be thought of
as having acted on and modified this approach in the presence of the
reintroduced, Diophantine concepts.
2. ALGEBRA IN THE ARAB WORLD: AL-KHWARIZMT. ABO-KAMIL. AND

AL-KARAJI
Sometime around A.D. 830, Muhammad ibn Miisa al-Khwarizmi composed

the earliest known Arabic treatment of algebra and started an algebraic line in
the Arabic world that persisted for several centuries. As a scholar at the House
of Wisdom, which began in Baghdad as the library of Harun al-Rashid
(reigned 786-809) and flourished under Caliph al-Ma'miin (reigned 813-33),
al-Khwarizmi, together with his noted colleagues the Banii Miisa, directed and
engaged in intellectual interests ranging from algebra and geometry to
astronomy and the translation of Greek scientific manuscripts.' It was in this
atmosphere of protection and patronage that al-Khwarizmi wrote his treatise
entitled al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala or The compendi-
ous book on calculation by completion and balancing.' Conceived as an
elementary textbook of practical mathematics, the Al-jabr wa'l-muqdbala
began with a discussion of the algebra of first and second degree equations and
moved on in its final two parts to the business of practical applications to
questions of mensuration and legacies.
Judging from evidence internal to al-Khwarizmi's AI-jabr wa'l muqabala,
the mathematical environment in which his ideas developed included facts,
theories, and approaches from several recognizable sources. Al-Khwarizmi's
use of geometrical justifications of algebraic manipulations together with the
fact that the Elements existed in two distinct translations from Greek into
Arabic by his contemporary at the House of Wisdom, al-Hajjaj ibn Yiisufibn
Matar,' suggest a line of descent from Euclid. On the other hand, because his
treatment of practical geometry so closely followed that of the Hebrew text,
Mishnat ha Middot, which dated from around A.D. 150, the evidence of Semitic
ancestry exists." Al-Khwarizmi's concern with practical algebra and his
treatment of equations through the second degree betray a vestige of the
Babylonian line,? while his totally rhetorical style points to a remote Hindu
ancestor and a lack of contact with later Greek texts, particularly the
Arithmetica of Diophantus. In fact, since the first known Arabic translation of
the Arithmetica was not completed by Qusta ibn Liiqa until the middle of the
ninth century or later," we can be fairly certain that the more theoretical ideas
of Diophantus had not yet entered the environment of, and so had not come
into competition with, Arabic mathematics. Given this complex mathematical
environment with its well-defined varieties of algebraic theories, we must now
examine how the theory al-Khwarizrni presented in his AI-jabr wa'l-muqabala
could have arisen through a natural selection of ideas.
In the opening algebraic part of the AI-jabr wa'l muqabala, al-Khwarizmi
distinguished and solved six types of algebraic equations up to and including
the quadratic, namely, squares equal to roots, squares equal to numbers, roots
equal to numbers, squares and roots equal to numbers, squares and numbers
equal to roots, and roots and numbers equal to a square. In modern notation
these become ax' = bx, ax' = c, bx = c, ax' + bx = c, ax' + c = bx,
and bx + c = ax', respectively, with the presence of six separate cases
following from the fact that mathematicians up to and well beyond this time
acknowledged neither zero coefficients nor negative numbers. Al-Khwarizmi
systematically presented the algebraic solutions, known since Babylonian
times, of particular cases of these equations and then provided geometric
justification for his algebraic rules. Consider his discussion of squares and
roots equal to numbers:
... a square and 10 roots are equal to 39 units. The question therefore in
this type of equation is about as follows: what is the square which
combined with ten of its roots will give a sum total of 39? The manner of
solving this type of equation is to take one-half of the roots just
mentioned. Now the roots in the problem before us are 10. Therefore take
5, which multiplied by itself gives 25, an amount which you add to 39
giving 64. Having taken then the square root of this which is 8, subtract
from it half the roots, 5 leaving 3. The number three therefore represents
one root of this square, which itself, of course is 9. Nine therefore gives the
square."
In modern notation, the problem was to solve the equation r + lOx = 39 for
+
x', 10 The method, given step by step, translates as I0 = 5, 52 = 25, 39 +
25=64, y64=8, 8-+'10=3 sox=3andx2=9.
However, al-Khwarizrni went beyond merely providing the sort of algebraic
recipe found in Babylonian texts. He insisted upon superadding a Euclidean
style of geometrical proof for algebraic fact. Thus, after explicitly stating that
" ... it is necessary that we should demonstrate geometrically the truth of the
same problems which we have explained in numbers", II he proceeded to justify
the above example with two different geometrical constructions, both of which
yielded a completion of the square. In the second construction he required that
... to the square as representing the square of the unknown we add ten
roots and then take half of these roots giving 5. From this we construct
two areas added to the sides of the square figure ab [Figure I]. These again
g a
b
h d
FIG. I
are called ag and bd. The breadth of each is equal to the breadth of one
side of the square ab and each length is equal to 5. We now have to
complete the square by the product of 5 and 5, which, representing the half
of the roots, we add to the two sides of the first square figure, which
represents the second power of the unknown. Whence it now appears that
the two areas which we joined to the two sides, representing ten roots,
together with the first square, representing r, equals 39. Furthermore it is
evident that the larger or whole square is formed by the addition of the
product of 5 by 5. This square is completed and for its completion 25 is
added to 39. The sum total is 64. Now we take the square root of this,
representing one side of the larger square and then we subtract from it the
equal of that which we added, namely 5. Three remains, which proves to
be one side of the square ab, that is, one root of the proposed r. Therefore
three is the root of this x 2, and x 2 is 9Y
Although not as formal in style, this argument paralleled that given by
Euclid in the Elements for 11.6: "If a straight line be bisected and a straight line
A c B D
IK L H M
E G F
FIG. 2
be added to it in a straight line, the rectangle contained by the whole with the
added straight line and the added straight line together with the square on the
half is equal to the square on the straight line made up of the half and the
added straight line.,,13 For a straight line AB bisected at C [Figure 2] and a
straight line BD added to it, Euclid proved 11.6 by showing that rectangle
ADMK equals the sum of rectangles CDML and HMFG. Thus, by adding the
square on CB, that is, by adding square LHGEto CDML and HMFG, we have
square CDFE, as desired." With respect to al-Khwarizmi's proof above,
square BDMH played the role of ab, the equal rectangles CBHL and HMFG
were the geometric results of dividing the ten roots into two groups of five
roots each and corresponded to ag and bd, and finally square LHGE for
Euclid and al-Khwarizmi's square bh completed the larger square. The two
arguments hinged on exactly the same sequence of steps." ,
By incorporating a certain measure of Euclidean geometrical rigour into a
practical textbook on algebraic manipulation, al-Khwarizmi effected a varia-
tion upon which the natural selection of ideas could act. His idea amounted to
uniting aspects of two previously distinct varieties of algebraic thought,
namely, the calculationally oriented Babylonian approach to algebra and
Euclid's formal geometrical interpretation of algebra. In the present context,
this may be viewed as the interbreeding of two varieties yielding an offspring, a
new variety, which, through the preservation of the favourable characteristics
of both parents by natural selection, was distinct from both. The Babylonians
wanted accurate techniques for solving practical problems involving both
linear and quadratic equations, while as Sir Thomas Heath explained, Euclid
wished" ,.. to show the power of the method of geometrical algebra as much as
to arrive at results"." Al-Khwarizmi's new variety of algebra presented the
favourable variation of practical computation justified by mathematical
proof.'? Thus, in our model, the natural selection of ideas should have
preserved this favourable variation. That it was indeed preserved may be seen
in the fact that al-Khwarizmi's AI-jabr wa'l muqabala served as the point of
departure for many succeeding Arabic treatments of algebra.
In the generation just after al-Khwarizmi, Abii-Kamil (c. 8SO-c. 930) based
his own Kitab fi al-jabr wa'l-muqabala or Book on completion and balancing on
al-Khwarizrni's work. In his text, Abii-Kamil not only quoted directly from al-
Khwarizmi, but he also incorporated almost half of al-Khwarizmi's forty
examples into his work with little more than numerical changes." The
mathematical environment in which Abii-Kamil's thought developed involved
more than the work of al-Khwarizmi, however. Whereas the evidence of
Euclidean ancestry in the mathematical thought of al-Khwarizmi, though
strong, was purely morphological, Abii-Kamil actually cited Euclid in his
geometrical proofs." Thus, after only one generation, Euclid's text and ideas
appear to have become more widespread within the environment of algebraic
ideas. Since any variation which better adapts a theory to changed conditions
should be preserved under the action of natural selection, Abii-Kamil's idea of
establishing al-Khwarizml's geometrical arguments with complete Euclidean

formality and rigour should have proved favourable.
Compare, for example, Abii-Kamil's proof of the solution of the equation
x 2 + lOx = 39 with the proofs of al-Khwarizrni and Euclid discussed above:
... the obvious solution is the root when one lays out a surface of a square
quadrilateral on it - ABGD [Figure 3]: One adds the roots to it which
were originally associated with the square-it is IO-they are ABWH.
One knows that line BH is 10 because the side AB of the surface ABGD
H r--- W
l;I M K
B A E
G D N
FIG. 3
multiplied by unity is a root of the surface ABGD. It is one multiplied by

10; it is 10 roots of the surface ABGD. Thus it is line BH or 10. The entire
surface WHGD is 39 because it was set up as the square and 10 of its roots;
it is the product of line HG by line GD. But line GD is equal to line GB.
Also, the product of line HG by line GB is 39. Line HB equals 10. Divide it
in half by the point If. Add line GB to its length. And so, the surface is the
result of the product of [lfG by itself just as the surface is the result of the
product of] HG by line BG added to the square quadrilateral, the product
of IfB by itselfjust as Euclid stated in the second part of his book. But the
product ofline HG by line GB is set at 39. The product of line lfB by itself
is 25; the total is 64. Thus, the product of line lfG by itself is 64; the root of
64 is 8. Then, the line lfG is 8. One knows that line lfB is 5 and line BG
remains as 3. It is the root of the square; the square is 9. 20
Unlike al-Khwarizmi, Abii-Kamil systematically constructed and labelled the
geometrical pieces of his proof and carefully linked them to the numerical
components of the algebraic procedure. This rendered his treatment more
rigorous (in the sense of Euclid's proof of 11.6) than al-Khwarizmi's, but his
use of numbers from the particular example at hand anchored his work in
practical algebra as distinct from the theoretical geometrical algebra of Euclid.
As Martin Levey explained, Abu-Kamil " ... utilized the theoretical Greek
mathematics without destroying the concrete base of al-Khwarizmi's algebra

and evolved an algebra based on practical realities derived from Babylonian
roots and strengthened by Greek theory"." By infusing al-Khwarizmi's
algebra with proofs inspired by Euclid's Elements, Abii-Kamil introduced a
variation that made al-Khwarizmi's ideas more competitive in a more strongly
Euclidean environment. Thus, in the natural selection of ideas the favourable
variation presented by Abii-Kamil's variety of algebra should also have been
preserved.
In fact, this line of descent from al-Khwarizmi to Abu-Kamil persisted
relatively unchanged through the tenth century. At the House of Wisdom in
Baghdad, Abii'l-Wafa' al-Biizjani (940-97/98) commented on al-Khwarizmi's
AI-jabr wa'l-muqabala as well as on the works of Euclid and composed a
practical arithmetic for the use of scribes and businessmen.F Of particular
interest, however, is Abu'l-Wafa's commentary on Diophantus's Arithmetica,
which although now lost, significantly altered the mathematical environment
of the Arab world by providing access to the Diophantine brand of determi-
nate and indeterminate analysis of equations through the eighth degree. One
mathematician whose work adapted itself to this change in environment was
al-Karaji.
Also working in Baghdad sometime toward the end of the tenth century and
through the beginning of the eleventh, al-Karaji united aspects of the
geometrical algebra of al-Khwarizmi and Abii-Kamil with the indeterminate
algebra of Diophantus in his treatise entitled al-Fakhri. There, for the first time
in the Arabic literature, he presented a formal algebraic calculus in which he
exhibited rhetorically relations such as these modern equivalents: l/x2 • I/x =
l/x3, l/x . x 3 = xl, and l/x : l/xl = X 2/X. 23 He also incorporated a large
number of problems and solutions from the Arithmetica into his extensive
collection of examples. Among these we find indeterminate equations of
degrees two and three in up to three unknowns," problems that transcended
the theories of al-Khwarizmi and Abii-Kamil. According to Roshdi Rashed,
"the more-or-Iess explicit aim of this exposition was to find the means of
realizing the autonomy and specificity of algebra, so as to be in a position to
reject, in particular, the geometric representation of algebraic operations"."
Within the present context, however, al-Karaji's new variation of algebra
merely marked an adaptation to a changed environment. In the presence of
Diophantus's ideas, al-Karaji, who was thoroughly imbued with the geometri-
cal algebra of al-Khwarizmi, accepted algebraic techniques from both of these
sources. At the same time, he rejected aspects of both approaches, specifically,
al-Khwarizmi's complete reliance on geometry and Diophantus's syncopated
notation. For reasons which we shall examine in the next section, al-Karaji's
algebraic variation competed with only limited success in an environment
which continued to be dominated by the ideas of al-Khwarizmi.
3. ALGEBRA IN THE WEST: LEONARDO FIBONACCI AND THE MAESTRI D'ABACO
In 71 I. one hundred years before al-Khwarizmi wrote his AI-jabr wa'l

muqabala, Muslim armies invaded Spain from North Africa and within several
years they had conquered virtually the entire peninsula. In the three centuries
that followed, this new Islamic state flourished until conflicts over succession
ended the ruling Umayyad Dynasty in 1031. During the century prior to its
collapse, however, the Umayyad court, set up at Cordova under Abd al-
Rahman III (ruled 912-61), became a focal point of scholarship and learning.
Under Abd al-Rahman's successor, al-Hakam II (ruled 961-76), scholars filled
the court and the Cordovan library grew to some 400,000 volumes secured
from all over the Islamic world. With the fall of the dynasty and the concurrent
destruction of the library, the books that managed to survive the desolation
found their ways into the court libraries of the new states which succeeded the
old regime. The presence of these Arabic texts, which both presented Arabic
scholarship and preserved ancient Greek knowledge, made Spain one of the
three primary centres for the translation from Arabic into Latin during the
next two centuries."
Furthermore, by opting to deal with a particular text, the translators
unwittingly shaped the mathematical environment of medieval Europe. Since,
by and large, only those Arabic texts which were translated into Latin were
accessible to the Western reader, only the mathematics presented therein had a
chance for survival. Thus, when al-Khwarizmi's AI-jabr wa'l muqabala came to
light in two, twelfth-century, Latin translations by Robert of Chester (fl. 1141-
50) and Gerard of Cremona (c. 1114-87), his algebraic ideas escaped extinc-
tion in the West. 27 Whether Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa (c. Il7o-c. 1240)
studied one or both of these Latin translations of al-Khwarizmi's algebra" or
whether he learned of algebra more directly during the business trips that took
him to Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence," the fact remains that al-
Khwarizmi's ideas figured prominently in his mathematical environment.
The son of a secretary of the Republic of Pisa, Fibonacci encountered early
on the sort of practical, commercial mathematics involved in his father's duties
as overseer of the Pisan trading colony of Bugia (now Bugie, Algeria)." This
contact piqued his mathematical interest in general and his algebraic interest
in particular. Throughout his adult life, then, as business took him to various
Mediterranean ports, Fibonacci fashioned his mathematical environment by
seeking out texts from which, and people from whom, he could learn more of
the intricacies of arithmetic and algebra. One result of these studies, his most
influential book, entitled Liber abbaci (1202, revised 1228), attested to his
mastery not only of the Hindu-Arabic techniques of practical calculation but
also of the theory of quadratic equations as found in the works of al-
Khwarizmi, Abii-Karnil, and al-Karaji."
In his work, Fibonacci put forth not so much an original exposition

(although he showed a certain amount of innovation in some of his solutions)
as a compilation of the techniques of Arabic arithmetic and algebra." For
instance, in the fifteenth and final chapter of his book, he turned to an
investigation of "algebrae et almichabile". There, he presented the usual
Arabic classification of equations, namely, the three simple cases of squares
equal to roots, squares equal to number, and root equal to number, and the
three composite cases of squares and roots equal to number, roots and number
equal to squares, and squares and number equal to roots." Then, following his
above named Arabic ancestors, he gave specific examples written out rhetori-
cally, solved algebraically, and justified geometrically." Leonardo's mathema-
tical environment encompassed more than this Arabic theory of algebra,
however. Within his sphere of commercial activities, there was also a need for
comprehensive catalogues of techniques for solving day-to-day problems.
Through the action of the natural selection of ideas, then, any algebraic
treatment which presented the favourable variation of combining the practical
and the theoretical should have been preserved.
The next three centuries evidenced the dominance of Leonardo's presen-
tation not only of the theory of algebra but also of the techniques of practical
problem-solving. Particularly during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
the mathematical environment changed with the rise of the merchant class in
Italy and the establishment of so-called "abacus schools". This ever greater
commercial emphasis created a need for honed-down, practical mathematics
textbooks written in the vernacular, as opposed to long and sometimes
theoretical treatises in Latin like the Liber abbaci or the Latin translations of
al-Khwarizmi's Al-jabr wa'l-muqabalat" In this environment, since Leonar-
do's theoretical, geometrical demonstrations of algebraic facts were largely
unnecessary, they proved neither useful nor injurious to the work of the
writers of purely practical texts. Thus, this aspect of his work was not affected
by the natural selection of ideas. It merely persisted in a dormant state until
conditions changed so as to bring it back into competition. The practical part
of Leonardo's treatise, however, did come into direct competition with the
ideas of these "maestri d'abaco". A careful examination of their "trattati" or
"libri d'abaco" reveals the authority of Fibonacci's approach as well as
evidence of the continuing process of the natural selection of favourable
variations.
One of the earliest known vernacular treatments of algebra," Paolo
Gerardi's Libro di Ragioni of 1328 represented a variety of algebraic treatise
which, although clearly descendant from Leonardo and through him al-
Khwarizmi, Abii-Kamil, and al-Karaji, presented variations favourable or
uninjurious within the fourteenth century commercial environment. First, it
consisted of 193 rhetorically presented examples of which all but the last
fifteen were commercial in nature. Second, these final fifteen problems gave
solutions with no proofs, geometrical or otherwise, for fifteen different
algebraic equations. Third, while six of these last fifteen equations were the
standard six equations we have seen in al-Khwarizmi, Abii-Kiimil, al-Karaji,
and Leonardo, nine of them were cubic and of these five were irreducible." For
the first time in Western mathematical literature, Gerardi gave general, albeit
incorrect, solutions for the irreducible cubics: ax' = bx + N, ax' = bx' + N,
and ax' = bx' + ex + N. 38 His solutions were merely naive applications of
the quadratic formula to cubic equations. Thus, for ax' = bx + N, he claimed
x v[~ + ({/] + {a'

=
that is, the solution of the quadratic ax' = bx + N. Since he did not check his
answers by reapplying them to the original problem, he did not recognize that
his solution techniques yielded erroneous results. Nevertheless, Gerardi's
treatment of irreducible cubics categorically proved that the quest for solu-
tions to such equations did not begin in the sixteenth century with the
celebrated controversy involving Cardano and Niccolo Tartaglia (c. 1499-
1557). In fact, " ... Gerardi's rules, his problems, and even his erroneous
formulations are repeated in similar abacus manuscripts dating from about
1340 to the time of Paciolo .... Thus Gerardi's treatise was only the beginning
of a long tradition in the study of higher order equations that did not bear fruit
until the sixteenth century. "39 Interpreted in the light of the present point of
view, however, Gerardi's text presented favourable variations which endured
through the action of natural selection.
By the middle of the fourteenth century, two more libri d'abaco introduced
yet another important variation, the irreducible quartic equation, into the
mathematical environment and so into the struggle for existence. The anony-
mous Trattato dell'alcibra amuchabile (c. 1340) and the Aliabraa argibra
(midcentury, possibly 1344) of Master Dardi of Pisa belied the notion that the
search for solutions to fourth degree equations began with the successful
general solution of Ludovico Ferrari (1522-65) in the sixteenth century.f"
Furthermore, in his 1463 Trattato di praticha d'arismetrica, Maestro Bene-
detto of Florence selected many of the findings of the maestri d'abaco for
inclusion in his discussion of the work of Fibonacci and al-Khwarizmi.
Of importance for the present development, however, Benedetto questioned
the pretended general solutions of the cubic equations and thereby introduced
the variation represented by this new research problem into the mathematical
environment. He also mentioned the abbreviations in use for the various
powers of the unknown in his treatise, namely, p = "cosa" = x, c = "census"
= x 2, b = "cubo" = x', cc = "censo di censo" = x", br = "cubo relato cosa"
= x5, and bb = "cubo di cubo cosa" = x6 • Although he basically used only
the symbol for "cosa" in his text, this underscored the shift that was taking
place during the fifteenth century away from the purely rhetorical writing style
of al-Khwarizmi, Leonardo, and the fourteenth century authors and toward
an algebraic notation. Finally, influenced by two centuries of these practical
tracts, Benedetto's work reflected the gradual abandonment of strict geometri-
cal demonstrations and the progressive rise of more abstract algebraic
justification."
Over the more than two centuries between the appearance of Leonardo's
Liber abbaci and the work of Maestro Benedetto, the natural selection of
favourable variations within a heavily commercial environment had resulted
in a well-marked variety of algebraic treatment which had diverged from its
parent-species in the range of problems considered, in the type of justification
presented, and in the language and form of presentation. As the need for
problem-solving texts gradually diminished over the course of the fifteenth
century, however, the practical tracts of the maestri d'abaco became less
competitive and were supplanted by texts of a more theoretical nature. The
first of these treatments, Fra Luca Pacioli's (c. I445-c. 1517) Summa de
arithmetica, geometria, proportioni e proportionalita (1494, second edition
1523) dealt with the ideas and findings of the maestri d'abaco while also
drawing from the theoretical portion of works such as Euclid's Elements and
Fibonacci's Liber abbaci. This theory with its emphasis on the geometrical
proof of algebraic fact had lain dormant in the environment of practical
problem-solving characteristic of the intervening three centuries. The reintro-
duction of such notions at the turn of the sixteenth century represented a new
and favourable variation upon which natural selection acted.
Owing largely to the fact that Pacioli's Summa was the first work on algebra
to appear in print as opposed to manuscript, it reached a relatively wide
audience and established Pacioli, rightly or wrongly, as an important mathe-
matical contributor." In essence, little of the mathematics presented in the
Summa was due to Pacioli. His contribution lay rather in bringing virtually all
realms of mathematical knowledge together in one work. Written in a curious
blend of Italian, regional dialect, and Latin, the Summa was subdivided into
parts on arithmetic, algebra, commercial mathematics, and geometry. With its
arithmetic and algebraic parts drawn primarily from Fibonacci's Liber abhaci,
its presentation of Archimedean geometry from his Practica geometriae, and
its number-theoretic sections from his Liber quadratorum.t' the Summa
effected a change in the mathematical environment which brought the
advances, techniques, and geometrical standards of proof evident in these
works back to the fore." As they remarked in their respective works, Cardano,
Tartaglia, and Bombelli had read and absorbed the work presented in Pacioli's
mathematical encyclopedia. They were each in a position to accept or reject
the ideas they found there in light of the continuing, but no longer dominant,
practical line of algebra which they each appreciated.
While in content Pacioli's Summa contained little that had not already
appeared, the presentation of these known facts differed significantly from the
originals. As we have seen, the works of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries were purely rhetorical in style with everything except the numerals
written out in words. Benedetto's work of 1463 evidenced a slight movement
away from this with the introduction of a symbol, p, for the unknown. In
Pacioli's Summa of 1494, however, algebraic computations took on an even
more abbreviated form. Consider the following sequence from the Summa:"
p", l.co.rhk.v.Lce. m36
2a • 6
3". l.co.pkv.lce. m36
2.co.p6 216
2.co. 210
valor rei 105.
In modern notation this becomes:
1'1 x - y!(x 2 - 36)
2nd 6
3rd X + y!(x 2 - 36)
2x + 6 216
2x 210
value of x 105.
Thus, Pacioli's Summa reflected the fifteenth century trend toward greater
abbreviation of the old rhetorical style which gave algebraic manipulations a
more compact look and set them out in the text." Still, it is important to
acknowledge that this did not represent a true notation. In the Summa, co. was
merely a shortened form of "cosa", ceo abbreviated "census", R, derived from
"radix" or "root", and p and m came from the first letters of "piu [plus]" and
"meno [minus]", respectively. Furthermore, these abbreviations occurred in a
largely rhetorical setting. Abbreviation had not fully taken over, and the
beginning of a true algebraic symbolism would not begin to appear for about a
century.
Aside from the changes in mathematical exposition which Pacioli's Summa
embodied, the work directly or indirectly spurred the search for general
solutions of the cubic equations. As we have seen, incorrect solutions to
various forms of cubics and quartics had already appeared in the libri d'abaco
of Paolo Gerardi and Master Dardi of Pisa. Maestro Benedetto had recog-
nized the errors which had been passed down by successive generations of
maestri d'abaco and had noted that general solutions continued to elude
mathematicians. In the Summa, Pacioli perpetuated the variation which
Benedetto had introduced by asserting the impossibility of such general
solutions within the context of the algebra of the day. Yet he left open the
possibility that solutions might someday be found." Through the visibility of
Pacioli and his work, Benedetto's observation dominated mathematical re-
search in Italy for almost fifty years.
In the years from 1501 to 1502, Pacioli's name appeared on the roster of
professors at the University of Bologna. There, he undoubtedly gave lectures
which reflected the contents of his Summa. Although it is not known whether
Scipione dal Ferro (1465-1526), a professor of mathematics at the University
of Bologna, heard these lectures or whether Pacioli dealt therein with the
problem of higher degree equations, it is known that dal Ferro succeeded in
solving the cubic ax 3 + bx = c sometime between 1500 and ISIS, and possibly
in 1504.48 In keeping with the customs of the time, dal Ferro kept his discovery
a closely guarded secret, revealing it only to a very privileged few. Among the
privileged were his son-in-law, the mathematician Annibale della Nave (c.
150(}-58) and his student, Antonio Maria Fiore. The solution was not
published; it was by no means disseminated; it was private and precious
property.
At the turn of the sixteenth century in Italy, the teacher of mathematics lived
in a highly competitive world. At this time, students paid their professors
directly for each course they took. Thus, if they became dissatisfied with the
level or quality of instruction, payment could be summarily suspended, and
the instructor could be forced to leave the school and even the town. To
uphold their reputations and to insure their livelihoods, professors engaged in
public contests with the winner gaining prestige and, presumably, greater
numbers of students. These contests were generally initiated by an underdog
who proposed a series of problems to an established figure. The better-known
mathematician then prepared a comparable set of examples for the challenger.
After a predetermined length of time, the participants came together in public
to present their solutions, the one with the greater number of correct answers
taking the contest." In such an atmosphere, the guardian of a new solution or
technique gained a distinct advantage over potential opponents and enjoyed
job security by virtue of his secret. Given the system, it was simply not in one's
best interests to publicize major discoveries. Hence, although dal Ferro
introduced an important variation into the body of mathematical knowledge,
namely, his solution to the cubic ax' + bx = c, it did not immediately come
into competition with other algebraic ideas. In fact, it lay dormant, outside the
scope of the natural selection of ideas, until Cardano published it in his Ars
magna in 1545.
Dal Ferro's death in 1526 released his confidants from their pledge of
secrecy, and in 1530 Fiore challenged Zuannin de Tonini da Coi, a mathemati-
cian from Brescia, to a contest which involved the irreducible cubic. Unable to
resolve the challenge problems, Tonini da Coi in turn put them to a local rival,
Niccoli> Tartaglia. In 1530, Tartaglia responded that such problems were
impossible. In 1535, when Fiore challenged him directly with thirty examples
requiring the same secret formula, Tartaglia independently discovered the
solution and won the contest.".
Cardano heard of Tartaglia's feat and petitioned him to share his findings so
that it could be included, with all due credit, in the book Cardano was busy
preparing. Wishing to see his discovery first published in one of his own
forthcoming works, however, Tartaglia declined to divulge the secret. At
Cardano's subsequent entreaties, though, he capitulated sometime in 1539. By
publishing the result in 1545, Cardano sparked one of the most spectacular
priority controversies in the history of mathematics, but that need not concern
us here." Of importance to our study is the fact that Cardano's publication of
solutions of the cubic equations brought these variations into competition
within the mathematical environment. In particular, the struggle for existence
between these new facts and the algebraic theory as previously held took place
within the context of Cardano's own statement on algebra, his text entitled Ars
magna.
Earlier writers on the history of mathematics often saw in Cardanoa beacon
of the renaissance of mathematics and a modern who completely cast off the
mathematical bonds of the past. For instance, Morris Kline assessed Cardano
in these words in his Mathematics in western culture: "In his lewdness and
rejection of authoritarian doctrines, as well as in his searching mathematical,
physical, and medical studies, Cardano symbolized the revolt from a thousand
years of intellectual serfdom .... "52 In his biography of Cardano, Oystein Ore
expressed a similar point of view: "A revolution took place in mathematics
during the first half of the sixteenth century. The classical works of the Greek
mathematicians had been for nearly two thousand years the unsurpassable
pinnacles of mathematical attainment. And then, within a few years the
shackles were broken and new fields with golden opportunities lay open. The
theories of higher equations and algebra were created and some of the more
visionary mathematicians, especially Cardano, began to see the general
principles which were to occupy mathematicians in the centuries to come. "53
As we have seen, neither the theory of higher degree equations in particular
nor algebra in general sprang fully matured from the minds of the sixteenth
century. Cardano's systematic exposition of the theory of algebra marked not
a revolution in mathematics but a step in the continuing process of the natural
selection of ideas. He did not revolt against the ideas of his predecessors. He
144' KAREN HUNGER PARSHALL
selected from among them and, in combination with his own ideas, produced a
new variety of algebra.
4. THE ARS MAGNA OF GIROLAMO CARDANO
Cardano opened his Ars magna with a brief historical passage in which he first
traced his intellectual lineage from al-Khwarizrni through Fibonacci to Pacioli
and then outlined the sixteenth century developments on the solution of the
cubic equation. In this passage, he not only indicated the mathematical
environment in which his thoughts had developed but also, like so many of his
contemporaries, expressed a firm conviction in the unlimited capabilities of the
art of algebra thereby justifying his researches. As he put it: "Since this art
surpasses all human subtlety and the perspicuity of mortal talent and is a truly
celestial gift and a very clear test of the capacity of men's minds, whoever
applies himself to it will believe that there is nothing he cannot understand.?"
As a true Renaissance natural philosopher, Cardano sought the keys to a
deeper understanding of nature. He believed that his Ars magna perfectly
revealed at least one such key, the key to the art of algebra.
Cardano began this work by specifying the limits which his environment
forced on his mathematics. He explained that only those problems which
described some aspect of three-dimensional space were real and true. In his
words: "For as positio [the first power of the unknown] refers to a line,
quadratum [the square of the unknown] to a surface, and cub urn [the unknown
cubed] to a solid body it would be very foolish for us to go beyond this point.
Nature does not permit it. "55 Thus, Cardano preserved the standards of his
acknowledged ancestors. He held that only equations of or reducible to
degrees one, two, or three made sense because only equations of those degrees
described nature. Furthermore, since he also selected the standard of geome-
trical proof of algebraic fact evident in the work of the Arabic mathematicians,
Fibonacci, and Pacioli, geometry restricted him to a consideration of third
degree equations at most. From this viewpoint, consider then his demon-
stration of the infamous cube and first power equal to the number:
For example [Figure 4], let GH3 plus six times its side GH equal 20, and let
AE and CL be two cubes the difference between which is 20 and such that
the product of AC, the side [of one], and CK the side [of the other], is 2,
namely one-third the coefficient of x. Marking off BC equal to CK, I say
that, if this is done, the remaining line AB is equal to GH and is, therefore,
the value of x, for GH has already been given as [equal to x].
In accordance with the first proposition of the sixth chapter of this book
[on the formula, in modern notation, (a + h)3 = a3 + 3azh + 3ahz + h3], I
complete the bodies DA, DC, DE, and DF; and as DC represents BCl, so
F E
D
G H
A B
0
C
L
K
I
FIG. 4
DF represents AB3, DA represents 3(BC x AB2) and DE represents 3(AB

x B~).56
Here, Cardano asked his readers to complete the cubes formed on AB +

BC, in just the same way the Arabs or Leonardo completed the square. This
FIG. 5
resulted in the body shown in Figure 5, where, for instance, DE is the shaded
region. In Cardano's set-up, AC3 corresponded to the cube AE and CK3
represented the cube CL and was equivalent to BC 3, so
AC3 - Be = AC3 - CK3 = 20,
by hypothesis, and
AC3 - BC 3 = AC3 - CK3 = DA + DE + DF
(1)
by construction. Furthermore, "since ... AC x CK equals 2, AC x 3CK will

equal 6, the coefficient of x; therefore AB x 3(AC x CK) makes 6x or 6AB,
wherefore three times the product of AB, BC, and AC is 6AB."57 This gave
Cardano an essentially algebraic (as opposed to geometric) equivalent of 6AB,

namely,
(2) 6AB = 3(AB x BC x AC).
Invoking the second proposition of the sixth chapter, that is,
AC3 + 3(AC X CB 2) = (AC - CB)3 + CB3 + 3(CB X A~),58
Cardano used the equivalent formulation

AB3 = (AC - CB)3
(3) = AC3 + 3(AC X CB2) + (- CB3) + 3( - CB X AC2) .
Substituting (3) into (I) and verifying that

3(BC x AB2) + 3(AB X BC2)
equalled (2), Cardano found that

(4) AC3 - BC3 = AC3 + 3(AC X CB 2) + 3( - CB X AC2) + (- BC3) + 6AB
= 20.
Adding 6AB to both sides of (3) and using (4), he concluded that AB3 + 6AB
= 20, and so the GH desired was the AB constructed. Cardano completed the
chapter with a rhetorical description of the formula for the cube and first
power equal to the number followed by three specific examples."
In the natural selection of ideas, the standard of rigorous, geometrical
demonstration applied to algebraic fact which Cardano adopted obviously
represented a favourable variation in the theory of algebra. As we have seen, it
had endured from the time of Euclid, through the medieval period, and into
the sixteenth century but always in applications to first and second degree
equations. In the Ars magna, Cardano extended its realm of applicability to
cubic equations and thereby introduced a new variation. For quadratic
equations, Cardano, like his ancestors, built squares; but for third degree
equations, he constructed cubes.
In spite of his selection of the geometrical standard of proof for cubics,
however, Cardano rejected it for higher degree equations and generated
another variation. He followed the statement in which he acknowledged the
geometrical foolishness of trying to go beyond the cubic with this: "Thus, it
will be seen, all those matters up to and including the cubic are fully
demonstrated, but the others which we will add, either by necessity or out of
curiosity, we do not go beyond barely setting OUt."60 These "others" were the
solutions of irreducible equations of the fourth degree discovered by his
student, Ludovico Ferrari. Hence, for equations of or reducible to degree
three, Cardano adhered to one standard of proof, the geometrical construc-

tion and he extended it to the completion of the cube for degree three. For
irreducible equations of degree four, however, geometry failed him. He was
unable to conceive of, much less complete, a four-dimensional figure. Thus, in
order to deal with the quartic equations which sparked his interest, he had to
reject geometry and rely instead on algebraic algorithm alone.
In fact, Cardano did not give a general proof of the solution to the
biquadratic. In the thirty-ninth chapter of the Ars magna, he explained that:
"there is another rule, more noble than the preceeding. It is Ludovico
Ferrari's, who gave it to me on my request. Through it we have all the
solutions for equations of the fourth power, square, first power, and number,
or of the fourth power, cube, square, and number. ..."61 Following a partial list
of the biquadratic types, however, Cardano gave only a demonstration for
completing the square on x 4 + bx' = c, where he interpreted x 4 as the square
of side x 2 • This did not constitute a proof of the solution rule for a fourth
degree equation, it merely justified one step in the algebraic process toward
such a solution. He followed this demonstration with a rhetorical summary of
the steps involved in effecting the rule and proceeded to work out eight
different types of quartic equations." Cardano's relaxation of the justification
criteria in the case of fourth degree equations represented an important
variation. In the presence of such higher degree equations, the old standard,
which had competed successfully in the struggle for existence since the time of
Euclid, no longer proved useful and so was rejected. Of necessity, equations of
degree four or greater could not be held accountable to geometry. They
required some new technique, some new variation. By treating them algebrai-
cally instead of geometrically, Cardano generated just such a variation.
Geometric considerations also created a problem with respect to the
meaning of negative numbers. What did it mean for a line to have negative
length, a square to have negative area, or a cube to have negative volume?
What did it mean to subtract a larger quantity from a smaller one? Euclid, the
Arabs, Fibonacci, the maestri d'abaco, Pacioli, and Cardano all handled this
matter in the same way.
As we have seen, they never allowed negative coefficients and were thereby
forced to consider many cases of equations of each degree. In his discussion of
quadratic equations, for example, Cardano dealt with
l.quad.aeq.lO.pos.p.144 or x 2 = lOx + 144,
144.aeq.lO.pos.p.l.quad. or 144 = lOx + xl, and
l.quad.p.16.aeq.lO.pos. or x 2 + 16 = IOx. 63
Since each of these equations represented a different way of partitioning up a
square into rectangles of smaller areas, the sides of the smaller rectangles could
not have negative length. Furthermore, the geometrical interpretation of the
solutions of such equations as the side of a square precluded negative

solutions. Again, though, Cardano produced an important variation by
rejecting the strict, geometrical interpretation of negative numbers and by
allowing them an independent algebraic existence. As he admitted, negative
numbers did, after all, satisfy certain equations. For instance, "if the square of
a square is equal to a number and a square, there is always one true solution
and another andjictitious solution equal to it. Thus, in x 4 = 2r + 8, x equals
2 or - 2."64 For Cardano, the "true solution" made geometrical sense whereas
the "fictitious" one did not. So although he generally accepted the sovereignty
of the geometrical standard, here Cardano accepted something different,
something algebraic with no obvious geometric meaning."
Negative numbers created an even greater conundrum when they occurred
under a square root. In his Chapter 5, Cardano dealt with solutions of
quadratic equations and rhetorically stated the same rules as we have seen in
texts from the Al-jabr wa'l-muqabala on. He explained that "if the first power
is equal to the square and the number, multiply as before one-half the
coefficient of the first power by itself and, having subtracted the number from
the product, subtract the root of the remainder from one-half the coefficient of
the first power or add the two of them, and the value of x will be both the sum
and the difference.t'" In modern notation, if ax = r + b, then
(5)
a solution involving a square root. After applying this rule to two examples,
Cardano warned his readers that "if the number [i.e., b in (5)] cannot be
subtracted from the square of one-half the coefficient of the first power [i.e.,
(ta)2 in (5)], the problem itself is a false one and that which has been proposed
cannot be. It must always be observed throughout this treatise that, when
those things which have been directed cannot be carried out, that which is
proposed is not and cannot be. "67 The geometrical criteria necessarily ren-
dered problems which resulted in a negative under the radical invalid. Such
problems simply lay outside the bounds of the art.
In Chapter 37, however, Cardano introduced another key variation when he
rejected geometry once more in order to deal with another purely algebraic
construct. He wrote: "If it should be said, Divide 10 into two parts the product
of which is 30 or 40, it is clear that this case is impossible. Nevertheless, we will
work thus: We divide 10 into two equal parts, making each 5. These we square,
making 25. Subtract 40, if you will, from the 25 thus produced, ... leaving a
remainder of - 15, the square root of which added to or subtracted from 5
gives parts the product of which is 40. These will be 5 + vi - 15 and 5 -
vi - 15."68 Since this problem translated into a quadratic of type x 2 + b = ax,
Cardano tried to justify its algorithm geometrically. (See Equation (5) above.)
When he computed (ta)2 - b, - 15 in this case, he explained to his readers
that "since such a remainder is negative, you will have to imagine v' _15",69
and he concluded his discussion admitting that "this truly is sophisticated,
since with it one cannot carry out the operations one can in the case of a pure
negative and other [numbers]"." Thus, the rejection of the geometrical
constraints produced a new algebraic entity which behaved very differently
from anything previously known, an entity which had no physical interpre-
tation, and "so progresses arithmetic subtlety the end of which, as is said, is as
refined as it is useless"."
In Cardano's Ars magna, we witness a definite struggle for existence between
the old, venerated tradition of Euclid and the Arabs and the new, untried ideas
of the sixteenth century. At the same time he tried to maintain the Euclidean
standard, Cardano acknowledged the solution of the fourth degree equations,
a discovery which he could not completely justify within his chosen frame-
work. While desirous of purely geometrical interpretations of algebraic facts,
Cardano admitted that negative numbers satisfied certain equations in spite of
the fact that negative lengths, areas, and volumes made no sense. Even in light
of the thorny geometrical problem presented by unadorned negative numbers,
Cardano conceded that their square roots yielded to algebraic manipulation
and provided solutions to equations. Far from casting off his mathematical
heritage as Kline, Ore, and others have suggested, Cardano worked to uphold
it in the face of new mathematical facts and constructs. In Cardano's work, we
see evidence not of the complete rejection of the past but rather of the struggle
for existence of the old and venerated geometrical standard for algebraic proof
within an environment changed by fourth degree equations and imaginary
numbers. In an environment so altered, geometrical justification was
obviously no longer the "fittest" way of proving all algebraic facts. In Raphael
Bombelli's Algebra of 1572 and Francois Viete's In artem analyticem isagoge
of 1591, we see evidence of yet another struggle for existence. By the last
quarter of the century, Cardano's variety in the geometrical line came into stiff
competition with the ideas found in a newly rediscovered Greek text, the
Arithmetica of Diophantus.
5. THE REDISCOVERY OF DIOPHANTUS'S ARITHMETICA AND THE WORK OF

RAPHAEL BOMBELLI AND FRAN<;OIS VIETE
Around 1463 the noted humanist, Johannes Muller (1436-76) or Regiomonta-

nus as he was most often called, reported that he had found a Greek text of"...
the fine thirteen Books of Diophantus, in which the very flower of the whole of
Arithmetic lies hid, the ars rei et census, which today they call by the Arabic
name of Algebra"." Actually, the manuscript Regiomontanus discovered in
Venice contained only six books of the Arithmetica" and dealt not so much
with the determinate type of algebra of the day but with indeterminate algebra
largely unknown to the fifteenth century." Had Regiomontanus succeeded in

fulfilling his desire to translate Diophantus's text into Latin, the Arithmetica
might have entered into the Western mathematical environment a century
earlier than it finally did.
As we have seen, the text consistently failed to compete successfully within
the mathematical environment. Such was the case when Diophantus first put
forth his ideas and methods around A.D. 250 and then again when al-Karaji
reintroduced them in his al-Fahkri almost eight hundred years later." Given
the dominance of the geometrical approach to algebra from at least the time of
Euclid through that of al-Khwarizmi, Abii-Kamil, and al-Karaji himself, this
should come as no surprise. In his text, rather than giving geometrical
justifications for solution algorithms of problems with a practical bent,
Diophantus presented a series of problems, mostly of an indeterminate nature,
and provided algebraic techniques for solving them.
Consider, for example, the following problem from Book II: "To find three
numbers such that the square of anyone of them minus the next following
gives a square. "76 In modern notation, Diophantus took x + 1, 2x + 1, and 4x
+ I as his three numbers and noted that they satisfied two of the conditions.
In other words, by careful choices of his indeterminate numbers he clearly had
(x + 1)2 - (2x + 1) = x 2, a square, and

(2x + 1)2 - (4x + 1) = 4r, a square.
However, (4x + 1)2 - (x + 1) = 16x2 + 7x, so he arbitrarily set 16x2 + 7x =
25r, a square, to get x = 7/9. Substituting this value in the expressions for the
three numbers, he found the solution 16/9, 23/9, 37/9.77 The arbitrariness of
this problem left Diophantus open to postulate any convenient indeterminate
form for the desired numbers and allowed him to give one particular answer
rather than any sort of general solution. Furthermore, his approach to the
problem was algebraic; he provided no geometrical demonstration of the
validity of the result.
Diophantus also developed an abbreviated way of writing algebraic expres-
sions not unlike that which had evolved by the sixteenth century from the
rhetorical texts of the Arabs and Fibonacci. For Diophantus, the equation
630r + 73x = 6 appeared as
AYXA t; cry tel Mo.

Here AY abbreviated ouva~1tt; meaning "power" and was equivalent to the
modern x 2; ~ stood for apt91l6~ or "number" and corresponded to x; to-
abbreviated icrot; or "equals"; M denoted Ilovaoe~ or "units"; the specific
numbers were barred versions of the usual Greek alphabetic number system;
and addition was indicated by simple juxtaposition." Thus, Diophantus's

treatment of the determinate problem 1.1 looked like this:
To divide a given number into two numbers with a given difference.
So, let the given number be p [100], and let the difference be Mil [40 units].
To find the numbers.
Let the less be taken as C;ii [one unknown]. Then the greater will be C;iiMii
[one unknown plus 40 units]. Then both together become C;BMii [2
unknowns plus 40 units]. But they have been given as Mp [100 units].
Mp then are equal to C;BMil.
And, taking like things from like: I take Mil from the p and likewise ii [40]
from the ~ [2] numbers and il units. The C;~ [2 unknowns] are left equal to
M~ [60 units]. Then each c; [unknown] becomes MA [30 units].
As to the actual numbers required: the less will be MA and the greater Mer
[70 units], and the proof is clear. 79
Diophantus's use of abbreviations such as C;, AY, and K Y for algebraic
unknowns within his rhetorically expressed solution algorithm appeared, as
we shall see in a moment, remarkably congenial to sixteenth century mathema-
ticians accustomed to their corresponding abbreviations co., ce., and cu.
By virtue of its rejection of the dominant, Euclidean, geometrical algebra,
the variety of algebra which Diophantus developed in his Arithmetica simply
did not compete within the mathematical environment. Its variation, namely a
purely algorithmic presentation applied in particular to problems of an
indeterminate nature, endowed it with the capability of solving a type of
problem outside the realm of geometrical algebra. Within that realm, then, the
variation proved neither useful nor injurious and was unaffected in the natural
selection of ideas. Whenever indeterminate problems did arouse interest, as
they apparently did with Hypatia in A.D. 400 and with al-Karaji at the start of
the eleventh century, however, Diophantus's ideas did enter into competition.
Thus, as a result of the dominance of geometrical algebra with its emphasis on
determinate problems, the theory Diophantus presented in the Arithmetica lay
in a virtual state of dormancy from its advent in A.D. 250 to its rediscovery in
the 1560s.
By that time, significant changes in the mathematical environment had
taken place. The solution of the fourth degree equation had pushed determi-
nate algebra to a point where geometry had proven insufficient to its needs.
The realization that negative and imaginary numbers algebraically satisfied
certain equations further undermined the authority of geometry in algebra. In
such a changed environment, the variations introduced by Diophantus might
finally prove favourable and allow for the successful completion of his theory.
That they did may be seen in the Algebra of Raphael Bombelli.
An engineer-architect by profession, Bombelli wrote the first draft of his

treatise L 'Algebra parte maggiore dell'Arithmetica divisa in tre libri most
probably between 1557 and 1560 when his work on the reclamation of the
marshes of the Val di Chiana in Tuscany had temporarily come to a halt. 80 He
consciously undertook this task in order to provide the mathematical com-
munity with a clear and in-depth treatment of this most vital of areas.
Although he felt that Cardano's Ars magna represented such a study, Bombelli
and others found Cardano's work difficult to read. As he explained in his
introduction, "no one has explored the secrets of algebra except Cardano of
Milan, who in his Ars magna dealt with the subject at length, but was not clear
in his exposition"." Bombelli wished to combine the comprehensiveness of the
Ars magna with an unquestionable clarity of presentation.
As he later admitted, the first draft of the Algebra clearly reflected the
environment in which he worked, an environment dominated by the work of
al-Khwarizmi, Fibonacci, and Pacioli." In its original form, the text consisted
of five books each of which contained material of a particular nature.
Logically, the first book contained definitions of all of the concepts Bombelli
intended to use in the remainder of the work. There, he explained notions like
powers and roots and gave the first systematic exposition of negative numbers
under the radical. He also discussed the various techniques by which all of
these algebraic entities could be manipulated." This done, he turned in Book
II to his prime concern, an elucidation of the solutions of equations up to and
including the biquadratics. He modelled this part of the treatise on the Ars
magna and so approached the task case-by-case. Following the lead of
Fibonacci, the maestri d'abaco, and Pacioli, he then devoted the third book to
multifarious examples and practical problems." In the fourth and fifth books
which remained incomplete, he planned to present further applications of
geometry to algebra as well as applications of algebra to geometry. This draft
of the Algebra with the planned fourth and fifth books never made its way into
print."
Sometime during the second half of the 1560s, Antonio Maria Pazzi, a
reader in mathematics at the University of Rome, discovered a manuscript
copy of Diophantus's Arithmetica in the Vatican Library and showed it to
Bombelli." Convinced of its merits, the two men set about to translate the
work and managed to complete five of the books before other duties called
them away. The discovery and translation of this text represented a significant
change in the mathematical environment. At a time when geometry's competi-
tive edge in handling algebraic questions had just been undermined by the
discoveries of the solution of the quartic and of imaginary and negative
numbers as solutions to equations, Diophantus's non-geometric approach to
algebra entered successfully into competition.
In fact, by 1572 when his Algebra finally appeared in print, Bombelli had
accepted the Diophantine point of view and had altered his own work
accordingly. Thus, while the Algebra's first version was phrased in terms of the
Arabic-inspired "cosa" and "census" for the unknown and its square, its 1572
rewriting employed the translations "tanto" and "potenza" of Diophantus's
"number [ap19J,1o<;]" and "power [MVUJ,11<;]"Y Furthermore, Bombelli con-
sciously excised most of the practical problems taken from the maestri d'abaco
and replaced them by 143 indeterminate problems taken from Diophantus. In
his introduction to Book III, he announced that he had broken with the usual
custom of casting problems " ... in the guise of human actions (buying, selling,
barter, exchange, interest, defalcation, coinage, alloys, weights, partnership,
profit and loss, games and other numerous transactions and operations
relating to daily livingj.?" He wished to teach "the higher arithmetic (or
algebra) in the manner of the ancients'I."
Responding to the broader intellectual environment which was dominated
by the humanistic revival of Greek texts, the mathematician Bombelli sought
to purify an algebra tainted by the practical, untheoretically motivated
problems of the maestri d'abaco. The new variety that he produced presented
the characteristics of both of its parent-varieties: for problems of a determinate
nature, the Algebra employed Cardano's geometrical algebra, but for the new,
indeterminate problems, it used Diophantus's new, ungeometrical, indetermi-
nate analysis. The variation which Bornbelli's algebra presented was the
focusing on a type of algebraic problem which was not solved using geometri-
cal devices and, by implication, the acknowledgement that all algebraic
problems did not require geometrically justified solutions. Given geometry's
inability to deal successfully with the solution of the quartics and with negative
and imaginary solutions in general, Bombelli's work presented a favourable
variation which the action of the natural selection of ideas should have
preserved. The work of Francois Viete evidenced the preservation of just this
sort of variation.
Viete prepared his In artem analyticem isagoge or Introduction to the analytic
art of 1591 in a humanistic environment in which the dominance of geometri-
cal algebra was being challenged by newly rediscovered ideas. Thus, although
firmly grounded in algebra as presented by Cardano in the Ars magna, Viete
also drew from such works as Diophantus's Arithmetica, Federico Commandi-
no's (1509-75) Latin translation of Pappus of Alexandria's (fl. A.D. 320)
Mathematical collection, and the humanist texts of Petrus Ramus (1505-72).90
In Ramus's writings, for example, Viete read of the algebraic content of Book
II of Euclid's Elements, of Diophantus's kind of indeterminate analysis, and of
the equation of algebra and analysis as opposed to its equation to geometrical
synthesis. Furthermore, as indicated by the quote from the In artem analyticem
isagoge which we cited earlier," Viete's humanistic leanings predisposed him
to reject the geometric variety of algebra with its Arabic line of descent. An
algebra more of recipes, albeit geometrically justified ones, than of general
problem-solving techniques, from Viete's stance, this variety failed to uncover
the "incomparable gold [that] lay hidden"." By selecting certain characteris-
tics of the works of Pappus and Diophantus and by combining these with his
own ideas, Viete developed just such a general method of problem-solving. At
its heart lay his new notion of a "species".
As we have already mentioned, Pappus's Mathematical collection (in the
Commandino translation which appeared in Pesaro in 1588) formed a part of
Viete's mathematical environment. In its seventh book, Viete found a com-
plete exposition of Greek analysis and synthesis as applied primarily to
geometry. According to Pappus: "Analysis, then, is the way from what is
sought, taken as admitted by means of a previous synthesis ... but in synthesis,
going in reverse, we supposed as admitted what was the last result of the
analysis, and, arranging in their natural order as consequences what were
formerly the antecedents, and connecting them with one another, we arrive at
the completion of the construction of what was sought; and this we call
synthesis."93 He went on to break analysis down into two basic kinds where
"the one is searching for the truth [i.e., zetetic from ... 'to search'], which is
called theoretical and the other is for supplying what is required [i.e., poristic
from ... 'to supply'], which is called problematical"." Thus, since Pappus
understood analysis and synthesis as converse procedures, each of the two
forms of analysis had its corresponding synthesis. Direct proof was the
synthesis of the zetetic art; proof generated by geometric construction was that
of the poristic art. Diophantus tacitly recognized these same correspondences,
but whereas Pappus used them only in solving geometrical problems, he
applied them only to algebraic ones." By means of his new concept of a
species, Viete formally extended Pappus's notions to encompass both geo-
metric and algebraic questions and thereby created a unified and universal
theory of problem-solving. He introduced his new variation on these old ideas
in the opening chapter of The analytic art.
After defining analysis and synthesis in virtually the same way as had
Pappus, Viete continued by noting that
although the ancients set forth a twofold analysis, the zetetic and the
poristic, to which Theon's definition primarily refers, it is nevertheless
fitting that there be established also a third kind, which may be called
rhetic or exegetic, so that there is a zetetic art by which is found the
equation or proportion between the magnitude that is being sought and
those that are given, a poristic art by which from the equation or
proportion the truth of the theorem set up is investigated, and an exegetic
art by which from the equation set up or the proportion there is produced
the magnitude itself which is being sought. And thus, the whole threefold
analytical art, claiming for itself this office, may be defined as the science
of right finding in mathematics."
In other words, Viete recognized the need for a set of clearly expounded rules
for actually solving equations and proportions. Reacting against the kind of
unmotivated solution of one example after another which characterized
Diophantus's Arithmetica, Viete underscored the importance of a lucid
explanation of general procedures to motivate the solutions given.
Viete's addition of the rhetic art to Pappus's twofold analysis represented an
important variation in that " ... it encompasse[d] nothing less than the theory
of equations addressed to their solutions"." Correlated to this variation,
however, was another of equal or greater import. A little further on in The
analytic art he wrote: "In the zetetic art, however, the form of proceeding is
peculiar to the art itself; inasmuch as the zetetic art does not employ its logic
on numbers - which was the tediousness of the ancient analysts - but uses its
logic through a logistic which in a new way had to do with species. This logistic
is much more successful and powerful than the numerical one .... "98 His new
logistic, the logistice speciosa, in contradistinction to Diophantus's reckoning
with indeterminate numbers, or logistice numerosa, operated " ... with species
or forms of things, as, for example, with the letters of the alphabet'i."
For Viete, a species was a placeholder for an undetermined unknown or a
given magnitude. He called for " ... the given magnitudes [to] be distinguished
from the undetermined unknowns by a constant and very clear symbol, as, for
instance, by designating the unknown magnitude by means of a letter A or
some other vowel E, I, 0, U, or Y, and the given magnitudes by means of
letters B, G, and D or other consonants" .100 Then, unlike Diophantus but in
keeping with the views of his predecessors in the line of descent of the
geometrical algebra, Viete attached dimension to the species in any given
equation and insisted that only expressions of equal dimension were commen-
surate. He stated this formally as follows:
The supreme and everlasting law of equations or proportions, which is
called the law of homogeneity because it is conceived with respect to
homogeneous magnitudes is this:
1. Only homogeneous magnitudes are to be compared [compararzl with
one another.
For ... it is impossible to know how heterogeneous magnitudes may be
conjoined.
And so, if a magnitude is added to a magnitude, it is homogeneous with
it.
If a magnitude is multiplied by a magnitude, the product is hetero-
geneous in relation to both.
156, KAREN HUNGER PARSHALL
If a magnitude is divided by a magnitude, it is heterogeneous in relation

to it.
Not to have considered these things was the cause of the darkness and
blindness of the ancient analysts.'?'
Thus, for Viete, the notions of dimensionality and its homogeneity bound his
new notational system together. Without them, a symbolism such as his lacked
an internally dictated and coherent set of rules for operation and so lacked
meaning. To Viete's way of thinking, then, Diophantus's system suffered
precisely from the absence of this philosophical glue.
In Viete's new system, (A cube) + (B solid) denoted the addition of a three-
dimensional unknown and a three-dimensional magnitude, (A square) + (B
plane) stood for the addition of a two-dimensional unknown and a two-
dimensional magnitude, and A + B (with the dimensionality terms sup-
pressed) represented the analogous situation in one-dimension. Subtraction,
multiplication, and division behaved similarly.l'" With this system in his
employ, Viete could write expressions such as
... let it be required to add Z to A plane I B. The sum will be

(A plane) + (Zin B) 103
B '
an expression which translates in modern terms as
2
x 21b +c= x +
b cb.
A glance at these two versions of the same mathematical statement reveals

that although Viete introduced and operated on symbols for unknown as well
as known quantities, his work exhibited an obvious vestige of his geometrical
algebraic ancestry, namely, dimensionality. In the natural selection of ideas,
the variations represented by Pappus's twofold analysis, Diophantus's indeter-
minate analysis, and the geometrical algebraic concept of dimensionality all
survived in Viete's work and proved favourable in his conception of a general
method of problem-solving. In a mathematical environment changing through
the reintroduction of Greek texts and their contents, characteristics like the
geometrical justification of algebraic fact and the use of specific numerical
constants in an ostensibly general context were no longer advantageous and
were rejected. As the subsequent development of algebra would attest, the
analytic art which resulted from the fusion of ideas adopted, ideas rejected,
and ideas newly generated, provided favourable as well as ultimately injurious
variations on which the natural selection of ideas acted.'?'
Viete explicitly demonstrated the immediate efficacy of his new art in the
Zeteticorum libri quinque, a work published in 1593 but probably written in
1591.105 Since he aimed to contrast his logistice speciosa directly with Dio-
phantus's logistice numerosa in this text, Viete juxtaposed dozens of Diophan-
tus's solutions with his own in order to demonstrate the superiority of his
methods. Consider his version of Diophantus's 1.1 which we examined above:
Given the difference of two "sides" and their sum, to find the "sides".
Let the differences B of the two "sides" be given, and also let their sum
D be given.
It is required to find the "sides".
Let the less "side" be A; then the greater will be A + B. Therefore, the
sum of the "sides" will be A2 + B. But the same sum is given as D.
Wherefore, A2 + B is equal to D. And, by antithesis, A2 will be equal to D
- B, and if they are all halved, A will be equal to Df + Bt.
Or, let the greater "side" be E. Then the less will be E - B. Therefore,
the sum of the "sides" will be E2 - B. But the same sum is given as D.
Therefore, E2 - B will be equal to D, and by antithesis, E2 will be equal
to D + B, and if they are all halved, E will be equal to Df + Bt.
Therefore, with the difference of two "sides" given and their sum, the
"sides" are found.
For, indeed, half the sum of the "sides" minus half their difference is
equal to the less "side", and half their sum plus half their difference is
equal to the greater.
Which very thing the zetesis shows.
Let B be 40 and D 100. Then A becomes 30 and E becomes 70.
By recasting Diophantus's problem into more general terms, Viete highlighted
the algebraic forms involved in the problem and the algebraic manipulations
necessary to effect a general solution in terms of Band D. Then he simply
substituted in the given values for Band D, namely, 40 and 100, to generate the
particular solution.
In his work, On the origin of species, Darwin explained that since" ... there
will be a constant tendency in the improved descendants of anyone species to
supplant and exterminate in each stage of their descent their predecessors and
their original parent, ... all the intermediate forms between the earlier and the
later states, that is between the less and the more improved state of a species, as
well as the original parent-species itself will generally tend to become
extinct" .107 Viete's analytic art, with its more general notation and emphasis on
general problem-solving, represents such a highly improved and competitive
descendant, a descendant which totally supplanted both its Diophantine and
its geometrical algebraic predecessors through the continued and continuing
action of the natural selection of ideas.
158' KAREN HUNGER PARSHALL
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was partially supported by National Science Foundation

Scholars Award *SES-8509795 held while I was in the Department of
Mathematical Sciences, Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, VA 24595. I would
like to thank the referees for their helpful suggestions, but I am especially
grateful to Professor Allen G. Debus for his role in seeing this study to
fruition.
REFERENCES
1. Girolamo Cardano, The great art or the rules of algebra, trans. by T. Richard Witmer
(Cambridge, 1968),7.
2. Francois Viete, Introduction to the analytic art, trans. by Rev. J. Winfree Smith, in Jacob
Klein, Greek mathematical thought and the origin of algebra (Cambridge, 1968),318-19.
Smith's translation of Viete's work forms an appendix to Klein's book and may be found
on pp. 315-53. In what follows, I shall cite "Viete, Introduction" when drawing
quotations directly from this translation of Viete's work. More recently, nine of Viete's
works, including the Introduction to the analytic art, have been translated by T. Richard
Witmer in Francois Viete, The analytic art: Nine studies in algebra, geometry and
trigonometry from the Opus restitutae mathematicae analyseos, seu algebra nova, trans. by
T. Richard Witmer (Kent, Ohio, 1983). For a reprint of the original 1646 edition of
Viete's collected works, see Francois Viete, Opera mathematica, recognita francisci a
Schooten, ed. by Joseph E. Hofmann (Leiden, 1646; reprint edn, Hildesheim-New York,
1970).
3. Gerald Toomer, "Al-Khwarizmi, Abii Ja'far Muhammad ibn Miisii", Dictionary ofscientific
biography, ed. by C. C. Gillispie (New York, 1970-80; hereafter DSB), vii, 358-65, p. 358;
J. Al-Dabbagh, "Banii Miisii, three brothers-Muhammad, Ahmad, and al-Hasan",
DSB, i, 443--6, p. 444; and David C. Lindberg, "Transmission of Greek and Arabic
learning to the West", in David C. Lindberg (ed.), Science in the Middle Ages (Chicago,
1978), 52-90, pp. 55-58.
4. Here "al-jabr" translates as "completion" and signifies the elimination of negative quantities
from an equation. For example, "al-jabr" transforms x = 10 - 3x into 4x = 10. The
term "al-muqiibala" translates as "balancing" and refers to reducing positive quantities
of the same power on both sides of an equation. For example, "al-muqabala" turns lOx
+ 64 = 5x + 36 + x' into 5x + 28 = x'. See Toomer, op. cit. (ref. 3), 359.
5. Sir Thomas L. Heath, The thirteen books of Euclid's Elements, i (Cambridge, 1926),73-84.
6. See Solomon Gandz, "The sources of al-Khwarizmi's algebra", Osiris, i (1936), 263-77.
7. See Otto Neugebauer, The exact sciences in Antiquity (New York, 1969), 147.
8. Jacques Sesiano, Books IV to VII of Diophantus' Arithmetica in the Arabic translation
attributed to Qusta ibn Luqa (New York, 1982), 8. In this work, Sesiano presents an
English translation of and commentary on four of the thirteen books of the Arithmetica,
which had been considered lost for well over six hundred years. For a new translation (in
French) of the ten known books of the Arithmetica, see Diophantus, Les Arithmetiques,
trans. by Roshdi Rashed (Paris, 1984). In his translation, Rashed claims priority for the
discovery of the four newly-discovered books of the Arithmetica and strongly criticizes
Sesiano's version. See, for example, Les Arithmetiques, iii, ref. 63, pp. lix-Ixii. On Qusta
ibn Liiqa's dates, see ibid., iii, pp. xvi-xxii.
9. Al-Khwarizmi, "Six types of rhetorical algebraic equations", in Edward Grant (00.), A

source book in medieval science (Cambridge, 1974), 106-11, p. 108.
10. Notice that al-Khwarizmi solves not for the unknown x, as we would today, but for its
square. His aim is to complete or solve the square, literally speaking.
II. Al-Khwarizmi, op. cit., 110.
12. Ibid., Ill.
13. Heath, Elements (ref. 5), i, 385.
14. Ibid., 385-6.
15. Scholars disagree on the role of Euclid in al-Khwarizmi's mathematics. In his article on al-
Khwarizmi's sources, Gandz argues against a Euclidean influence, but in his DSB article,
Toomer argues for such an influence. See Gandz, op. cit. (ref. 6), 264-7, and Toomer, op.
cit. (ref. 3), 360. For yet another view, see "L'Idee de l'algebra selon al-Khwanzmi", in
Roshdi Rashed, Entre arithmetique et algebre: Recherches sur I'histoire des mathematiques
arabes (Paris, 1984), 17-29. (This book by Rashed brings together many of his influential
articles on Arabic mathematics originally published in Archive for history of exact
sciences.)
16. Heath, Elements (ref. 5), i, 377. On differing views concerning the significance and meaning
of "geometrical algebra", see B. L. van der Waerden, Geometry and algebra in ancient
civilizations (New York, 1983), 75-96; B. L. van der Waerden, "Defence of a shocking
point of view", Archive for history of exact sciences, xv (1976), 199-210; and Sabetai
Unguru, "On the need to rewrite the history of Greek mathematics", Archive for history
of exact sciences, xv (1975), 67-114.
17. Of course, it is impossible to say with total certainty that this approach to algebra actually
originated with al-Khwarizmi. His AI-jabr wa'l-muqabala, nevertheless, is the earliest
fossil remain of this line.
18. Martin Levey, The Algebra of Abu Kamil: Kitab Ii al-jabr wa'l-muqabala (Milwaukee,
1966), 13-18.
19. While the exact translation which Abii-Kamil used is unclear, by his period of activity, the
Elements existed not only in the translations made by al-Hajjaj but also in versions by
Abii-Karnil's near contemporaries, Ishaq ibn Hunain and Thabit ibn Qurra. See Heath,
Elements (ref. 5), i, 75-77, 84, 87-88, and Lindberg, op. cit. (ref. 3), 56-57.
20. Levey, op. cit., 34. Note Abii-Kamil's direct citation of Book II of Euclid's Elements.
21. Ibid., 4.
22. A. P. Youschkevitch, "Abii'f-Wafa' Al-Biizjani, Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn
Isma'Il ibn AI-'Abbas", 39-43, p. 43. See also Heath, Elements (ref. 5), i, 85-86.
Somewhat before Abu'l-Wafa' wrote his commentary on the Arithmetica, Abu Ja'far AI-
Hazin had directly referred to Diophantus in dealing with several questions in indetermi-
nate analysis. See Sesiano, op. cit. (ref. 8), 10.
23. Roshdi Rashed, "Al-Karaji (or al-Karkhi), Abu Bekr ibn Muhammad ibn al Husayn (or al-
Hasan)", DSB, vii, 240-6, p. 241.
24. Ibid., 244.
25. Ibid., 241. For more on al-Karaji's mathematics, see Roshdi Rashed, "L'induction mathe-
matique: al-Karaji, as-Sarnaw'al", Archivefor history of exact sciences, ix (1972),1-21;
Rashed, Entre arithmetique et algebre (ref. 15),71-91.
26. Lindberg, op. cit. (ref. 3), 58. The other two centres for translation were Sicily and the Latin
kingdoms in the Near East.
27. See ibid., 63-66, and Michael S. Mahoney, "Mathematics", in David C. Lindberg (ed.),
Science in the Middle Ages (ref. 3),145-78, pp. 157-8, for more on these translators. On a
third translation due to William de Lunis, and so dating from the thirteenth century, see
Barnabas Hughes, "The medieval Latin translations of al-Khwarizmi's Al'Jabr' ",

Manuscripta, xxvi (1982), 31-37.
28. It is known that Leonardo had some direct contact with the translations of Gerard of
Cremona. He used Gerard's Latin translation of the work of the Banii Musil, entitled
Verba filiorum, in preparing his Practica geometria (1220). See Marshall Clagett,
Archimedes in the Middle Ages, i (Madison, 1964),7-32,224, and ibid., iii (Philadelphia,
1976-80),215.
29. Leonardo mentions his travels in the biographical introduction to his Liber abbaci. For the
Latin text, see Guillaume Libri, Histoire des sciences mathematiques en Italie depuis la
Renaissance des lettres, ii (Paris, 1838--41),287-90. Libri uses the 1228 revised version of
the 1202 Liber abbaci.
30. Ibid., 287. Also, in the biographical opening remarks of the Liber abbaci, Leonardo says that
his father saw to it that he was instructed in the "Indian" art of calculating.
31. On the calculating tradition which predated Fibonacci, see Mahoney, "Mathematics" (ref.
27), 146-52. It is important to note that Fibonacci incorporated problems of a
Diophantine nature in the Liber abbaci. His contact with Diophantus's work, however,
seems not to have been direct but through the texts of al-Karaji. In fact, Ettore Picutti, in
his "II Libro dei Quadrati di Leonardo Pisano e i Problemi di Analisi indeterminata nel
Codice Palatino 557 della Biblioteca Nationale di Firenze", Physis, xxi (1979),195-339,
argues for Leonardo's independence of Diophantus's ideas and techniques. Although
some Diophantine notions did filter down through time. Diophantus was not really
introduced into Western mathematics until the sixteenth century.
32. Kurt Vogel, "Fibonacci, Leonardo or Leonardo of Pisa", DSB, iv, 604-13. Vogel gives a
summary of the contents of the whole work.
33. Libri, op. cit. (ref. 29), 356-8.
34. Leonardo's exposition is purely rhetorical although he does employ Hindu-Arabic numerals.
It is also important to note that he frequently gives more than one geometrical
demonstration of a given algebraic fact.
35. Warren Van Egmond, "The earliest vernacular treatment of algebra: The Libro di Ragioni
of Paolo Gerardi (1328)", Physis, xx (1978), 155-89, pp. 155-7.
36. The earliest known vernacular treatment of algebra actually dates from the end of the
thirteenth century. See Van Egmond, "The earliest vernacular treatment of algebra",
157.
37. A polynomial is said to be irreducible if it cannot be simplified to a polynomial of lower
degree.
38. Van Egmond, "The earliest vernacular treatment of algebra", 187-8. These equations are
given in modern notation. Gerardi wrote mathematics rhetorically. These were not the
first cubic equations to appear in the Western mathematical literature. Borrowing either
directly or indirectly from al-Khayyami (Omar Khayyiim), Fibonacci included the cubic
equation x3 + 2x 2 + lOx = 20 in his text entitled, Flos (c. 1225). See Mahoney,
"Mathematics" (ref. 27), 160.
39. Van Egmond, "The earliest vernacular treatment of algebra", 163.
40. Warren Van Egmond, "The algebra of Master Dardi of Pisa", Historia mathematica, x
(1983),399-421. For a more detailed study of the algebraic work being done in Italy from
the thirteenth through the end of the fifteenth century, see Raffaella Franci and Laura
Toti Rigatelli, "Towards a history of algebra from Leonardo of Pisa to Luca Pacioli",
Janus, Ixxii (1985), 17-82.
41. Raffaella Franci and Laura Toti Rigatelli, "Maestro Benedetto de Firenze e la Storia
dell' Algebra", Historia mathematica, x (1983), 297-317, p. 314.
42. Franci and Toti Rigatelli, "Towards a history of algebra" (ref. 40), 61. See pp. 61--66 on the
Summa and what the authors term Pacioli's "unmerited fame".
43. Completed around 1225, the Liber quadratorum represented Leonardo's main foray into
indeterminate analysis in the style of Diophantus. See ref. 31 above on Leonardo's
sources.
44. P. Speziali, "Luca Pacioli et son eeuvre", in Sciences de la Renaissance: VIII' Congres
international de Tour (Paris, 1973), 93-106, p. 96. Pacioli drew the commercial sections of
the Summa principally from the maestri d'abaco.
45. Florian Cajori, A history of mathematical notations, i (Chicago, 1928),90.
46. See ibid. for a historical development of the cossist school and the notation it developed.
47. Speziali, "Luca Pacioli et son oeuvre" (ref. 44), 98. AI-Khayyiimi also left open the possibility
for general solutions of higher degree equations. See A. P. Youschkevitch and B. A.
Rosenfeld, "Al-Khayyami (or Khayyam), Gheyiith al-Din Abii'L-Fatb 'Umar ibn
Ibrahim al-Nisiibiiri (or al-Naysaburi), also known as Omar Khayyam", DSB, vii, 323-
34, p. 328. The work of al-Khayyami was unknown in the West at this time, however.
48. In his Ars magna written in 1545, Cardano said that the solution was discovered "well-nigh
thirty years ago", which would put the date at around 1515. See Cardano, The great art
(ref. I), 96. However, P. Speziali in "L'Ecole algebriste italienne du XVI' siecle et la
resolution des equations des 3' et 4' degres", in Sciences de la Renaissance (ref. 44), 107-
20, gives the date "1504 or maybe even the year before", without any further evidence.
See ibid., 110.
49. See Speziali, "L'Ecole algebriste italienne du XVI' siecle", 108, and Oystein Ore, Cardano:
The gambling scholar (Princeton, 1953), 62--63.
50. Speziali, "L'Ecole algebriste italienne du XVI' siecle", III, and Ore, op. cit., 63-65.
51. See Ore, op. cit., 77-107. For biographical information on Cardano, see Ore, op. cit., 3-52;
Girolamo Cardano, The book of my life, trans. by Jean Stoner (Toronto, 1931); Mario
Gliozzi, "Cardano, Girolamo", DSB, iii, 64--67; and for a Jungian slant on his life, see
Markus Fierz, Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576): Philosopher, natural philosopher, mathe-
matician. astrologer. and interpreter of dreams, trans. by Helga Niman (Boston, 1983).
52. Morris Kline, Mathematics in Western culture (New York, 1953), 100.
53. Ore, op. cit., 47-48. Here when Ore refers to "the Greek mathematicians", he means
mathematicians like Euclid whose work enjoyed a more or less continuous tradition.
54. Cardano, The great art (ref. I), 8.
55. Ibid., 9.
56. Ibid., 96-97.
57. Ibid., 97. I would like to thank my colleague, George Francis, for his rendering of Fig. 5.
58. In modern notation, this says a' + 3ab' = (a - b)' + b' + 3a'b, an equivalent version of
(a - W = a J - 3a'b + 3ab' - b',
59. Cardano, The great art (ref. 1),96-101.
60. Ibid., 9. My emphasis.
61. Ibid., 237.
62. Ibid., 237-53.
63. Ibid., 38-39.
64. Ibid., II. My emphasis. In the remainder of the text, Cardano inconsistently mentions
negative roots. For example, he gives only 18 as a solution to x' = lOx + 144. See ibid.,
36.
65. In his subsequent treatment of negatives, particularly in Chap. 37, he does give the
traditional interpretation of negatives as debits or defects.
66. Cardano, The great art (ref. 1),39.
67. Ibid., 39.
68. Ibid., 219 (my emphasis).

69. Ibid., 219.
70. Ibid., 220.
71. Ibid. The problem of negatives continued to haunt Cardano. As R. H. C. Tanner has pointed
out, Cardano returned to the issue in an appendix to the 1570 edition of the Ars magna.
Furthermore, in a work entitled, "Sermo de plus et minus", which only appeared in 1663
in Cardano's collected works, he responded to the way in which Bombelli treated
negatives in his Algebra of 1572. See R. H. C. Tanner, "The alien realm of the minus:
Deviatory mathematics in Cardano's writings", Annals ofscience, xxxvii (1980), 159-78,
pp. 168-77.
72. Sir Thomas L. Heath, Diophantus ofAlexandria: A study in the history ofGreek algebra (New
York, 1964), 20. See also Sir Thomas L. Heath, A history of Greek mathematics, ii
(Oxford, 1921; reprint edn, New York, 1981),448.
73. In the early 1970sa manuscript containing four more of the thirteen books was found to exist
in the Mashhad Shrine Library. Both recent translators of these four newly-discovered
books, Roshdi Rashed and Jacques Sesiano, have determined that the four new books
should be interposed between what have been considered Books III and IV up until now.
See ref. 8 above.
74. As we have noted, in the Liber abbaci Fibonacci did give some indeterminate problems which
may have been inspired indirectly by Diophantus through al-Karaji. See ref. 31 above.
75. When Diophantus wrote the Arithmetica around A.D. 250, the mathematical environment,
although dominated by Euclid's geometrical algebra, still included the Babylonian,
algorithmic approach to algebra. (See Heath, A history ofGreek mathematics (ref. 72), ii,
448.) From the present point of view, Diophantus, in selecting a more Babylonian mode
of thought and presentation, rendered his new ideas largely uncompetitive. That the
Arithmetica did generate some interest relatively early on, however, is evidenced by the
fact that Hypatia wrote a commentary on the text around A.D. 400. Diophantus's work is
also mentioned in scattered, later texts through the time of Fibonacci. (See Sesiano, op.
cit. (ref. 8), 8-20.
76. Heath, Diophantus (ref. 72), 155.
77. Ibid., 155.
78. For a complete discussion of Diophantus's notation, see ibid., 32-53, or Kurt Vogel,
"Diophantus of Alexandria", DSB, iv, 110-19, p. 112.
79. Viete, Introduction (ref. 2), 330-1. See ref. 22 above.
80. For detailed archival studies which clarify the particulars of Bornbelli's life, see S. A.
Jayawardene, "Unpublished documents relating to Raphael Bombelli in the archives of
Bologna", Isis, liv (1963),391-5; "Raphael Bombelli, engineer-architect: Some unpub-
lished documents of the Apostolic camera", Isis, Ivi (1965), 298-306; and S. A.
Jayawardene, "Bombelli, Raphael", DSB, ii, 279-81.
81. S. A. Jayawardene, "The influence of practical arithmetics on the Algebra of Raphael
Bombelli", Isis, Ixiv (1973), 510--32, p. 513. See ref. 15 above. See also Rafael Bombelli,
L'Algebra, with an Introduction by U. Forti and a Preface by E. Bortolotti, 1st integral
edn (Milan, 1966),9.
82. Paul Lawrence Rose, The Italian renaissance of mathematics: Studies of humanists and
mathematicians from Petrarch to Galileo (Geneva, 1975), 146.
83. See Bombelli, op. cit., 11-154. For a discussion of Bombelli's treatment of the so-called
imaginaries and of Cardano's reaction to them, see Tanner, op. cit. (ref. 71), 168-77.
84. See Bombelli, op. cit., 155-314, 315-476. For a treatment of these problems and their
sources, see Jayawardene, "The influence of practical arithmetics" (ref. 81), 513-21.
85. For texts of the fourth and fifth books, see Bombelli, op. cit., 477--{)18, 619--{)9.
86. Jayawardene, "Unpublished documents relating to Raphael Bombelli" (ref. 80), 392.
87. On Bombelli's nomenclature, see Bombelli, op. cit., 155--{). On his notation in general, see
Ettore Bortolotti, "Sulla rappresentazione simbolica della incognita e delle potenze di
essa introdotta dal Bombelli", Archivo di storia della scienza, viii (1927), 49--{)3.
88. Jayawardene, "The influence of practical arithmetics" (ref. 81), 511, see ref. 7 for the
translation. For the original Italian, see Bombelli, op. cit., 317.
89. Ibid, 511.
90. On Viete's sources, see Karin Reich, "Diophant, Cardano, Bombelli, Viete ein Vergleich
ihrer Aufgaben", in Rechenpfennige: Aufsatze zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte Kurt Vogel
zum 80. Geburtstag (Munich, 1968), 131-50; Michael S. Mahoney, "Die Anfange der
Algebraische Denkweise in 17. Jahrhundert", Rete, i (1971),15-31; and Mahoney, The
mathematical career of Pierre de Fermat ( 1601-1665) (Princeton, 1973), 26-48. It is not
clear whether Viete had studied Bornbelli's Algebra by 1591, but his reading of
Diophantus had led him to many of the same conclusions regarding the role of geometry
in algebra.
91. See Section I above.
92. Viete, Introduction (ref. 2), 319.
93. Ibid., ref. 218,260, and Pappus of Alexandria, La Collection mathematique, trans. by Paul
Ver Eecke, ii (Paris, 1933),477.
94. Klein, op. cit. (ref. 2), ISS, and Pappus, op. cit., ii, 478.
95. Klein, op. cit. (ref. 2), 155-7.
96. Viete, Introduction (ref. 2), 320--1. In the In artem analyticem isagoge, Viete attributed the
definitions he gave of analysis to Theon. Klein explained this as a result of the "general
humanistic tendency to derogate the authority of those writers who were recognized as
authorities in the schools, on the grounds of a 'better' knowledge of the ancients". See
Klein, op. cit. (ref. 2), ref. 217, 260-1.
97. Mahoney, The mathematical career of Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) (ref. 90), 34.
98. Viete, Introduction (ref. 2), 321-2.
99. Ibid., 328.
100. Ibid., 340. In the natural selection of ideas, this variation proved favourable and persists
today with Rene Descartes's (1596-1650) modification of it calling for letters at the
beginning of the alphabet, such as a, b, c, to denote the indeterminate magnitudes and
letters at the end, such as x, y, z, to indicate the unknowns.
101. Ibid., 324-5.
102. See ibid., 325-38. It is important to note that Viete did not acknowledge negative numbers.
For him subtraction signified taking the smaller from the larger. In this he did not differ
from Cardano, Fibonacci, or any of his predecessors. Like Cardano, the limitations of
dimensionality did not stop Viete from dealing with fourth and higher degree equations.
For these, he resorted to so-called mechanical methods.
103. Ibid., 338.
104. On the reactions of Descartes and Fermat to Viete's ideas on dimension, for example, see
Mahoney, The mathematical career of Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) (ref. 90), 42--44.
105. For a translation of this work into English, see Viete, The analytic art: Nine studies (ref. 2),
83--153.
106. Viete, Introduction (ref. 2), ref. 23, 331, or Viete, The analytic art: Nine studies (ref. 2), 83-84.
Note that Yiete employes no notation for equality. I. G. Bachmakova and E. I. Slavutin
have examined Viete's treatment of Diophantus's indeterminate problems in "'Genesis
triangulorum' de Francois Viete et ses recherches dans l'analyse indeterminee", Archive

for history of exact sciences, xvi (1977), 289-306.
107. Charles Darwin, On the origin of species, with an Introduction by Ernst Mayr, facs. of 1st
edn (Cambridge, 1964), 121.
A wonderfully illuminating coUection of essays, analyses and

biographies of some of the most important scientific pioneers of modem
times. Each book will make intriguing reading.
Prices are as follows: Thomas Edison £12.95. Madame Curie £9.95. Louis Pasteur £9.95.
Lawrence and Oppenheimer £9.95 Sigmund Freud £8.95. Erik Erikson £11.95.
Michael Faraday £12.95. The Human use of Human Beings£8.95. (All in paperback)
These books areavailable from good bookshopsor, incaseof difficutt», can be ordereddirecttv from
Do Capo Press, 3 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8L U, or by tetephoning 01 2400856.

HISTORY OF SCIENCE 26-1988-Parshall - The Art of Algebra From Al-Khwarizmi To Viete PDF

Diunggah oleh

Informasi Dokumen

Judul Asli

Hak Cipta

Format Tersedia

Bagikan dokumen Ini

Bagikan atau Tanam Dokumen

Opsi Berbagi

Apakah menurut Anda dokumen ini bermanfaat?

Apakah konten ini tidak pantas?

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

HISTORY OF SCIENCE 26-1988-Parshall - The Art of Algebra From Al-Khwarizmi To Viete PDF

Diunggah oleh

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Hist. sa..

THE ART OF ALGEBRA FROM AL-KHWARIZMI TO VlETE:

Karen Hunger Parshall

Traditionally, historians of mathematics have most often adopted a presentis-

0073-2753/88/2602-0129/$2.50 © 1988 Science History Publications Ltd

great art", all Mathematicians recognized that incomparable gold lay

2. ALGEBRA IN THE ARAB WORLD: AL-KHWARIZMT. ABO-KAMIL. AND

Sometime around A.D. 830, Muhammad ibn Miisa al-Khwarizmi composed

establishing al-Khwarizml's geometrical arguments with complete Euclidean

multiplied by unity is a root of the surface ABGD. It is one multiplied by

mathematics without destroying the concrete base of al-Khwarizmi's algebra

3. ALGEBRA IN THE WEST: LEONARDO FIBONACCI AND THE MAESTRI D'ABACO

In 71 I. one hundred years before al-Khwarizmi wrote his AI-jabr wa'l

In his work, Fibonacci put forth not so much an original exposition

x v[~ + ({/] + {a'

4. THE ARS MAGNA OF GIROLAMO CARDANO

DF represents AB3, DA represents 3(BC x AB2) and DE represents 3(AB

Here, Cardano asked his readers to complete the cubes formed on AB +

by construction. Furthermore, "since ... AC x CK equals 2, AC x 3CK will

Cardano an essentially algebraic (as opposed to geometric) equivalent of 6AB,

Cardano used the equivalent formulation

Substituting (3) into (I) and verifying that

equalled (2), Cardano found that

three, Cardano adhered to one standard of proof, the geometrical construc-

solutions of such equations as the side of a square precluded negative

5. THE REDISCOVERY OF DIOPHANTUS'S ARITHMETICA AND THE WORK OF

Around 1463 the noted humanist, Johannes Muller (1436-76) or Regiomonta-

largely unknown to the fifteenth century." Had Regiomontanus succeeded in

(x + 1)2 - (2x + 1) = x 2, a square, and

AYXA t; cry tel Mo.

and addition was indicated by simple juxtaposition." Thus, Diophantus's

An engineer-architect by profession, Bombelli wrote the first draft of his

If a magnitude is divided by a magnitude, it is heterogeneous in relation

... let it be required to add Z to A plane I B. The sum will be

A glance at these two versions of the same mathematical statement reveals

This research was partially supported by National Science Foundation

9. Al-Khwarizmi, "Six types of rhetorical algebraic equations", in Edward Grant (00.), A

Barnabas Hughes, "The medieval Latin translations of al-Khwarizmi's Al'Jabr' ",

68. Ibid., 219 (my emphasis).

triangulorum' de Francois Viete et ses recherches dans l'analyse indeterminee", Archive

A wonderfully illuminating coUection of essays, analyses and

Anda mungkin juga menyukai