Post #3124412

2026-04-12 08:09 UTC

@vnikolov@ieji.de @davidsuculum@mathstodon.xyz But that was still about 1000 years before, so it isn’t an exception of the “biggest mathematics invention in a thousand years”. I think however the cubic/quartic equation discovery is more important as the beginning of new discoveries than by itself. What followed has been arguably much more important than those formulas people seldom use.

Replies (1)

@vnikolov@ieji.de 2026-04-12 11:37

@antopatriarca@mathstodon.xyz You are right about the thousand years (though for European mathematicians that knowledge had _arrived_ much less than a thousand years before—during the 11th century, if I recall correctly). I should have noted that I was mostly thinking of developments in mathematics _after the Classical Age_ of Europe. (As far as I know, some small and early steps towards trigonometry can be found in Ptolemy's works, but the substantial achievements are due to Indian mathematicians a few centuries later.) And yes, solving cubic equations was definitely the start of a long line of developments leading to the big extension of the subject matter of algebra in the 19th century. @davidsuculum@mathstodon.xyz

Open ##3124413