Mathematician:Gerolamo Cardano

1501 - 1576

Italian mathematician, physician, inventor, astrologer and gambler.


 * Published systematic methods for solving cubic and quartic equations. Neither were supposedly discovered by him:
 * The formula for solving the cubic was passed to him by Tartaglia, but (as he discovered later) was in fact originally discovered by Scipione del Ferro.
 * The formula for solving the quartic was discovered by his student Ferrari (and bears Ferrari's name).
 * Wrote the first systematic treatment of probability.

Nationality
Italian

History

 * Born: September 24, 1501
 * Died: September 21, 1576

Theorems

 * Cardan's Formula

Books and Papers

 * "Artis magnae, sive de regulis algebraicis" (1545), in which he published what is now called Cardan's Formula for solving the cubic, and Ferrari's Method for solving the quartic. Also known as "Ars Magna".
 * "Liber de ludo aleae" (posthumous: 1663, written in the 1560's), a treatise on probability.