Diophantus biography summary example
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Other works
Diophantus did not just write Arithmetica, but very few of his other works have survived. Some Diophantine problems from Arithmetica have been found in Arabic sources. On the one hand Diophantus quotes the definition of a polygonal number from the work of Hypsicles so he must have written this later than 150 BC.
On the other hand Theon of Alexandria, the father of Hypatia, quotes one of Diophantus's definitions so this means that Diophantus wrote no later than 350 AD. However this leaves a span of 500 years, so we have not narrowed down Diophantus's dates a great deal by these pieces of information. He also lacked a symbol for a general number n.
He is sometimes called "the Father of Algebra," a title he shares with Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. The most famous Latin translation of the Diophantus's Arithmetica is due to Bachet in 1621 and it is that edition which Fermat studied. He is the author of a series of classical mathematical books called, The Arithmetica, and worked with equations which are now called Diophantine equations; the method to solve those problems is now called Diophantine analysis.
Equations which would lead to solutions which are negative or irrational square roots, Diophantus considers as useless.
In [19] and [20] Rashed compares the four books in this Arabic translation with the known six Greek books and claims that this text is a translation of the lost books of Diophantus.
Diophantus also made advances in mathematical notation and was the first Hellenistic mathematician who frankly recognized fractions as numbers. However, essentially nothing is known of his life and there has been much debate regarding the date at which he lived.
She was an authority on many subjects– primarily philosophy, Neoplatonic thought, mathematics and astronomy–and she is described as a very eloquent and charismatic lecturer.
She also made contributions to the mathematics, and was the first woman to do so. Diophantus looked at 3 different types of quadratic equations:
, , and
.
On polygonal numbers and geometric elements
Diophantus is also known to have written on polygonal numbers. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. Our claims are based on a scholium of an anonymous Byzantine commentator. European mathematicians did not learn of the gems in Diophantus's Arithmetica until Regiomontanus wrote in 1463:-
No one has yet translated from the Greek into Latin the thirteen Books of Diophantus, in which the very flower of the whole of arithmetic lies hid...Bombelli translated much of the work in 1570 but it was never published.
Consider y+z=10,yz=9. Other scholars asked her advice on many things, including, on some occasions, how to construct an astrolabe and a hydroscope. 191 et 304." Byzantion Brussels. After consoling his grief by this science of numbers for four years, he reached the end of his life.
The translation and solution of this epigram-problem infers that Diophantus' boyhood lasted fourteen years, acquired a beard at 21, and married at age 33.
History
After Diophantus's death, the Dark Ages began, spreading a shadow on math and science, and causing knowledge of Diophantus and the Arithmetica to be lost in Europe for roughly 1500 years. He also considered simultaneous quadratic equations. For this reason, mathematical historian Kurt Vogel writes: “Diophantus was not, as he has often been called, the Father of Algebra.