Subjects: Philosophy and Religion; mathesis universalis; characteristica universlais
تفاصيل العنوان
Subjects: Mathematics and Statistics; Finite geometry; Algebra and Number Theory
Subjects: we would like to emphasize the foundations on which Vi`ete could base his logistica speciosa. The period between Cardano’s Practica Arithmeticae of 1539 and Gosselin’s De arte magna of 1577 has been crucial in providing the necessary building; blocks for the transformation of algebra from rules for problem solving to the study of equations. In this paper we argue that the so-called “second unknown” or the Regula quantitates steered the development of an adequate; symbolism to deal with multiple unknowns and aggregates of equations. During this process the very concept of a symbolic equation emerged separate from previous notions of what we call “co-equal polynomials”The symbolic equation slowly emerged during the course of the sixteenth century as a new mathematical concept as well as a mathematical object on which new operations were made possible. Where historians have often pointed at Fran¸cois Vi`ete as the father of symbolic algebra
