The Telling of the Unattainable Attempt to Avoid the Casus Irreducibilis for Cubic Equations
The Telling of the Unattainable Attempt to Avoid the Casus Irreducibilis for Cubic Equations

Author: Sara Confalonieri

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 750

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Solving cubic equations by a formula that involves only the elementary operations of sum, product, and exponentiation of the coefficients is one of the greatest results in 16th century mathematics. This was achieved by Girolamo Cardano's Ars Magna in 1545. Still, a deep, substantial difference between the quadratic and the cubic formula exists: while the quadratic formula only involves imaginary numbers when all the solutions are imaginary too, it may happen that the cubic formula contains imaginary numbers, even when the three solutions are anyway ail real (and different). This means that a scholar of the time could stumble upon numerical cubic equations of which he already knew three (real) solutions and the cubic formula of which actually contains square roots of negative numbers. This will be lately called the "casus irreducibilis". Cardano's De Regula AJiza (Basel, 1570) is (at least, partially) meant to try to overcome the problem entailed by it. Its (partial) analysis is the heart of this dissertation.

The Unattainable Attempt to Avoid the Casus Irreducibilis for Cubic Equations
The Unattainable Attempt to Avoid the Casus Irreducibilis for Cubic Equations

Author: Sara Confalonieri

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-03-18

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 3658092750

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Sara Confalonieri presents an overview of Cardano’s mathematical treatises and, in particular, discusses the writings that deal with cubic equations. The author gives an insight into the latest of Cardano’s algebraic works, the De Regula Aliza (1570), which displays the attempts to overcome the difficulties entailed by the casus irreducibilis. Notably some of Cardano's strategies in this treatise are thoroughly analyzed. Far from offering an ultimate account of De Regula Aliza, by one of the most outstanding scholars of the 16th century, the present work is a first step towards a better understanding.

The Art of Science
The Art of Science

Author: Rossella Lupacchini

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-07-22

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 3319021117

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In addition to linear perspective, complex numbers and probability were notable discoveries of the Renaissance. While the power of perspective, which transformed Renaissance art, was quickly recognized, the scientific establishment treated both complex numbers and probability with much suspicion. It was only in the twentieth century that quantum theory showed how probability might be molded from complex numbers and defined the notion of “complex probability amplitude”. From a theoretical point of view, however, the space opened to painting by linear perspective and that opened to science by complex numbers share significant characteristics. The Art of Science explores this shared field with the purpose of extending Leonardo’s vision of painting to issues of mathematics and encouraging the reader to see science as an art. The intention is to restore a visual dimension to mathematical sciences – an element dulled, if not obscured, by historians, philosophers, and scientists themselves.

Explorations and False Trails
Explorations and False Trails

Author: Jens Høyrup

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 3031481585

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book provides a unique perspective on the history of European algebra up to the advent of Viète and Descartes. The standard version of this history is written on the basis of a narrow and misleading source basis: the Latin translations of al-Khwārizmī, Fibonacci's Liber abbaci, Luca Pacioli's Summa, Cardano's Ars magna -- with neither Fibonacci nor Pacioli being read in detail. The existence of the Italian abacus and German cossic algebra is at most taken note of but they are not read, leading to the idea that Viète's and Descartes' use of genuine symbolism (not only abbreviations), many unknowns, and abstract coefficients seem to be miraculous leaps. This book traces the meandering development of all these techniques along with the mostly ignored but very important parenthesis function, by means of detailed readings of all pertinent sources, including the abacus and cossic algebra and French algebra from Chuquet to Gosselin. It argues for a necessary distinction between abbreviating glyphs and genuine symbols serving within a symbolic syntax, which allows it to trace the emergence of symbolic calculation. Characterization of the mathematical practice of the environment within which Viète and Descartes moved allows for an explanation of how these two figures did not even need to invent abstract coefficients but rather received them as a gift.

Galois Theory Through Exercises
Galois Theory Through Exercises

Author: Juliusz Brzeziński

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-03-21

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 331972326X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This textbook offers a unique introduction to classical Galois theory through many concrete examples and exercises of varying difficulty (including computer-assisted exercises). In addition to covering standard material, the book explores topics related to classical problems such as Galois’ theorem on solvable groups of polynomial equations of prime degrees, Nagell's proof of non-solvability by radicals of quintic equations, Tschirnhausen's transformations, lunes of Hippocrates, and Galois' resolvents. Topics related to open conjectures are also discussed, including exercises related to the inverse Galois problem and cyclotomic fields. The author presents proofs of theorems, historical comments and useful references alongside the exercises, providing readers with a well-rounded introduction to the subject and a gateway to further reading. A valuable reference and a rich source of exercises with sample solutions, this book will be useful to both students and lecturers. Its original concept makes it particularly suitable for self-study.

A Concrete Introduction to Higher Algebra
A Concrete Introduction to Higher Algebra

Author: Lindsay Childs

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 1468400657

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book is written as an introduction to higher algebra for students with a background of a year of calculus. The book developed out of a set of notes for a sophomore-junior level course at the State University of New York at Albany entitled Classical Algebra. In the 1950s and before, it was customary for the first course in algebra to be a course in the theory of equations, consisting of a study of polynomials over the complex, real, and rational numbers, and, to a lesser extent, linear algebra from the point of view of systems of equations. Abstract algebra, that is, the study of groups, rings, and fields, usually followed such a course. In recent years the theory of equations course has disappeared. Without it, students entering abstract algebra courses tend to lack the experience in the algebraic theory of the basic classical examples of the integers and polynomials necessary for understanding, and more importantly, for ap preciating the formalism. To meet this problem, several texts have recently appeared introducing algebra through number theory.

Visual Complex Analysis
Visual Complex Analysis

Author: Tristan Needham

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 620

ISBN-13: 9780198534464

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This radical first course on complex analysis brings a beautiful and powerful subject to life by consistently using geometry (not calculation) as the means of explanation. Aimed at undergraduate students in mathematics, physics, and engineering, the book's intuitive explanations, lack of advanced prerequisites, and consciously user-friendly prose style will help students to master the subject more readily than was previously possible. The key to this is the book's use of new geometric arguments in place of the standard calculational ones. These geometric arguments are communicated with the aid of hundreds of diagrams of a standard seldom encountered in mathematical works. A new approach to a classical topic, this work will be of interest to students in mathematics, physics, and engineering, as well as to professionals in these fields.

A Concrete Introduction to Higher Algebra
A Concrete Introduction to Higher Algebra

Author: Lindsay N. Childs

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-04

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 1441987029

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An informal and readable introduction to higher algebra at the post-calculus level. The concepts of ring and field are introduced through study of the familiar examples of the integers and polynomials, with much emphasis placed on congruence classes leading the way to finite groups and finite fields. New examples and theory are integrated in a well-motivated fashion and made relevant by many applications -- to cryptography, coding, integration, history of mathematics, and especially to elementary and computational number theory. The later chapters include expositions of Rabiin's probabilistic primality test, quadratic reciprocity, and the classification of finite fields. Over 900 exercises, ranging from routine examples to extensions of theory, are scattered throughout the book, with hints and answers for many of them included in an appendix.

Mathematical Encounters and Pedagogical Detours
Mathematical Encounters and Pedagogical Detours

Author: Boris Koichu

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-02-04

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 3030584348

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores the idea that mathematics educators and teachers are also problem solvers and learners, and as such they constantly experience mathematical and pedagogical disturbances. Accordingly, many original tasks and learning activities are results of personal mathematical and pedagogical disturbances of their designers, who then transpose these disturbances into learning opportunities for their students. This learning-transposition process is a cornerstone of mathematics teacher education as a lived, developing enterprise. Mathematical Encounters and Pedagogical Detours unfold the process and illustrate it by various examples. The book engages readers in original tasks, shares the results of task implementation and describes how these results inform the development of new tasks, which often intertwine mathematics and pedagogy. Most importantly, the book includes a dialogue between the authors based on the stories of their own learning, which triggers continuous exploration of learning opportunities for their students.

Shadows of the Mind
Shadows of the Mind

Author: Roger Penrose

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 9780195106466

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Presents the author's thesis that consciousness, in its manifestation in the human quality of understanding, is doing something that mere computation cannot; and attempts to understand how such non-computational action might arise within scientifically comprehensive physical laws.