Mathematician:Gerolamo Cardano

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.

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

Nationality
Italian

History

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

Theorems

 * Cardano's Formula

Books and Papers

 * 1545: Artis magnae, sive de regulis algebraicis, 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.