Mathematician:Gerolamo Cardano

Mathematician
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, but (as he discovered later) was in fact originally discovered by.
 * The formula for solving the quartic was discovered by his student (and bears Ferrari's name).
 * Wrote the first systematic treatment of probability.

Nationality
Italian

History

 * Born: September 24, 1501
 * 1570: Imprisoned for heresy for publishing the horoscope of Jesus Christ.
 * Died: September 21, 1576

Theorems

 * Cardano's Formula

Publications

 * 1545:, in which he published what is now called Cardano's Formula for solving the cubic, and Ferrari's Method for solving the quartic. Also known as Ars Magna.
 * 1643: De propria vita (Of My Life) (posthumous)
 * 1663: Liber de ludo aleae (The Book of the Game of Dice) (posthumous; written in the 1560's), a treatise on probability.

Notable Quotes

 * These quantities are "truly sophisticated" and that to continue working with them would be "as subtle as it would be useless".
 * -- on complex numbers in his

Also known as
Also known as Girolamo Cardano, Jerome Cardan (the French and English form of his name), Hieronimo (or Hieronymo) Cardano, or Hieronymus Cardanus (the Latin form).