Diophantus
aliases
Diophantus of Alexandria; Διόφαντος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς
An Alexandrian Hellenistic mathematician, who was the author of a series of books called Arithmetica, many of which are now lost. Sometimes called "the father of algebra", his texts deal with solving algebraic equations. While reading Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac's edition of Diophantus' Arithmetica, Pierre de Fermat concluded that a certain equation considered by Diophantus had no solutions, and noted in the margin without elaboration that he had found "a truly marvelous proof of this proposition," now referred to as Fermat's Last Theorem. This led to tremendous advances in number theory, and the study of Diophantine equations ("Diophantine geometry") and of Diophantine approximations remain important areas of mathematical research. Diophantus coined the term παρισότης (parisotes) to refer to an approximate equality. This term was rendered as adaequalitas in Latin, and became the technique of adequality developed by Pierre de Fermat to find maxima for functions and tangent lines …more
edit descriptions of this character
No photos have been uploaded yet.
Books with Diophantus
|
Introducing Mathematics: A Graphic Guide
by
—
published
1995
add/edit characters
|
|
|
The Story of Mathematics
by
—
published
2008
add/edit characters
|
|
|
The Great Mathematicians: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Universe
by
—
published
2011
add/edit characters
|
|
