The challenge is to calculate Diophantus’ life span. The answer can be found in Appendix 3. This riddle is an example of the sort of problem that Diophantus relished. His speciality was to tackle questions which required whole number solutions, and today such questions are referred to as Diophantine problems. He spent his career in Alexandria collecting well-understood problems and inventing new ones, and then compiled them all into a major treatise entitled Arithmetica. Of the thirteen books which made up the Arithmetica, only six would survive the turmoils of the Dark Ages and go on to
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