By Ad Meskens
During this ebook the writer offers a accomplished examine of Diophantos’ enormous paintings referred to as Arithmetika, a hugely acclaimed and specific set of books in the recognized Greek mathematical corpus. Its writer, Diophantos, is an enigmatic determine of whom we all know almost not anything. beginning with Egyptian, Babylonian and early Greek arithmetic the writer paints an image of the assets the Arithmetika can have had. lifestyles in Alexandria, the place Diophantos lived, is defined and, at the foundation of the restricted to be had proof, his biography is printed. Of Arithmetika’s thirteen books basically 6 live on in Greek. It used to be now not until eventually 1971 that those have been complemented by means of the invention of four different books in an Arab translation. this enables the writer to explain the constitution, the contents and the math of the Arithmetika intimately. moreover it's proven that Diophantos had a awesome ability to unravel better measure equations. within the moment half, the writer attracts our consciousness to the survival of Diophantos’ paintings in either Arab and ecu mathematical cultures. as soon as Xylander’s severe 1575 variation reached its eu public, the celebrity of the Arithmetika grew. It was once studied, translated and transformed by means of such authors as Bombelli, Stevin and Viète. It reached its top of status in 1621 with the ebook of Bachet’s translation into Latin. The marginal notes by way of Fermat in his replica of Diophantos, together with his recognized “Last Theorem”, have been the start line of a complete new learn topic: the idea of numbers.
