Cardano and the solving of cubic and quartic equations

Girolamo Cardano was a famous Italian physician, an avid gambler, and a prolific writer with a lifelong interest in mathematics. His widely read Ars Magna (1545; “Great Work”) contains the Renaissance era’s most systematic and comprehensive account of solving cubic and quartic equations. Cardano’s presentation followed the Islamic tradition of solving one instance of every possible case and then giving geometric justifications for his procedures, based on propositions from Euclid’s Elements. He also followed the Islamic tradition of expressing all coefficients as positive numbers, and his presentation was fully rhetorical, with no real symbolic manipulation. Nevertheless, he did expand the use of symbols as a kind of shorthand for stating problems and describing solutions. Thus, the Greek geometric perspective still dominated—for instance, the solution of an equation was always a line segment, and the cube was the cube built on such a segment. Still, Cardano could write a cubic equation to be solved as cup p: 6 reb aequalis 20 (meaning: x3 + 6x = 20) and present the solution as R.V: cu.R. 108 p: 10 m: R.V: cu. R. 108m: 10, meaning x = Cardano cubic solution.

Because Cardano refused to view negative numbers as possible coefficients in equations, he could not develop a notion of a general third-degree equation. This meant that he had to consider 13 “different” third-degree equations. Similarly, he considered 20 different cases for fourth-degree equations, following procedures developed by his student Ludovico Ferrari. However, Cardano was sometimes willing to consider the possibility of negative (or “false”) solutions. This allowed him to formulate some general rules, such as that in an equation with three real roots (including even negative roots), the sum of the roots must, except for sign, equal the coefficient of the square’s term.

In spite of his basic acceptance of traditional views on numbers, the solution of certain problems led Cardano to consider more radical ideas. For instance, he demonstrated that 10 could be divided into two parts whose product was 40. The answer, 5 + Square root of−15 and 5 − Square root of−15, however, required the use of imaginary, or complex numbers, that is, numbers involving the square root of a negative number. Such a solution made Cardano uneasy, but he finally accepted it, declaring it to be “as refined as it is useless.”

The first serious and systematic treatment of complex numbers had to await the Italian mathematician Rafael Bombelli, particularly the first three volumes of his unfinished L’Algebra (1572). Nevertheless, the notion of a number whose square is a negative number left most mathematicians uncomfortable. Where, exactly, in nature could one point to the existence of a negative or imaginary quantity? Thus the acceptance of numbers beyond the positive rational numbers was slow and reluctant.

Viète and the formal equation

It is in the work of the French mathematician François Viète that the first consistent, coherent, and systematic conception of an algebraic equation in the modern sense appeared. A main innovation of Viète’s In artem analyticam isagoge (1591; “Introduction to the Analytic Art”) was its use of well-chosen symbols of one kind (vowels) for unknowns and of another kind (consonants) for known quantities. This allowed not only flexibility and generality in solving linear and quadratic equations but also something absent from all his predecessors’ work, namely, a clear analysis of the relationship between the forms of the solutions and the values of the coefficients of the original equation. Viète saw his contribution as developing a “systematic way of thinking” leading to general solutions, rather than just a “bag of tricks” to solve specific problems.

By combining existing usage with his own innovations, Viète was able to formulate equations clearly and to provide rules for transposing factors from one side of an equation to the other in order to find solutions. An example of an equation would be: A cubus + C plano in A aequatus D solido (meaning: x3 + cx = d).

Note that each of the terms involved was one-dimensional, that is, after canceling powers, the remaining terms on each side of the equation are to the first power. Thus, on the left-hand side, the two-dimensional magnitude Z plano (a square) was divided by the one-dimensional variable G, leaving one dimension. On the right-hand side, a sum of two three-dimensional magnitudes (a third power) was divided by a product of two one-dimensional variables (which make a square), leaving one dimension. Thus, Viète did not break the important Greek tradition whereby the terms equated must always be of the same dimension. Nevertheless, for the first time it became possible, in the framework of an equation, to multiply or divide both sides by a certain magnitude. The result was a new equation, homogeneous in itself yet not homogeneous with the original one.

Viète showed how to transform given equations into others, already known. For example, in modern notation, he could transform x3 + ax2 = b2x into x2 + ax = b2. He thus reduced the number of cases of cubic equations from the 13 given by Cardano and Bombelli. Nevertheless, since he still did not use negative or zero coefficients, he could not reduce all the possible cases to just one.

Viète applied his methods to solve, in a general, abstract-symbolic fashion, problems similar to those in the Diophantine tradition. However, very often he also rephrased his answers in plain words—as if to reassure his contemporaries, and perhaps even himself, of the validity of his new methods.

The concept of numbers

The work of Viète, described above, contained a clear, systematic, and coherent conception of the notion of equation that served as a broadly accepted starting point for later developments. No similar single reference point exists for the general conception of number, however. Some significant milestones may nevertheless be mentioned, and prominent among them was De Thiende (Disme: The Art of Tenths), an influential booklet published in 1585 by the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin. De Thiende was intended as a practical manual aimed at teaching the essentials of operating with decimal fractions, but it also contained many conceptual innovations. It was the first mathematical text where the all-important distinction between number and magnitude, going back to the ancient Greeks, was explicitly and totally abolished. Likewise, Stevin declared that 1 is a number just like any other and that the root of a number is a number as well. Stevin also showed how one single idea of number, expressed as decimal fractions, could be used equally in such separate contexts as land surveying, volume measurement, and astronomical and financial computations. The very need for an explanation of this kind illuminates how far Stevin’s contemporaries and predecessors were from the modern notion of numbers.

Indeed, throughout the 17th century, lively debates continued among mathematicians over the legitimacy of using various numbers. For example, concerning the irrationals, some prominent mathematicians, such as the Frenchman Blaise Pascal and the Britons Isaac Barrow and Isaac Newton, were willing only to grant them legitimacy as geometric magnitudes. The negative numbers were sometimes seen as even more problematic, and in many cases negative solutions of equations were still considered by many to be “absurd” or “devoid of interest.” Finally, the complex numbers were still ignored by many mathematicians, even though Bombelli had given precise rules for working with them.

All these discussions dwindled away as the 18th century approached. A new phase in the development of the concept of number began, involving a systematization and search for adequate foundations for the various systems. This new phase is described in the next section of this article.

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