The math wars of Italy: Part I
The Renaissance was a period of change. All forms of art were undergoing a period of transformation, whether in painting, sculpture, architecture, politics, language, science, technology, and yes, even math. Every mathematician, from England to Turkey, was obsessed with algebra. In fact, let me tell you a story about how math battles in Italy led us to invent a method for solving cubics. In Europe, there was a concept of a math battle, in which 2 mathematicians would exchange sets of math problems, and the one who solved more problems won. Reputations could be made and destroyed, and some mathematicians even dealt in their fortunes. These contests were so competitive that mathematicians created specialised problems that could only be solved using hidden methods known only to them. One of these problems was cubics, a type of equation represented as ax^3 + bx^2 + cx + d (e.g., 3x^3 + 4x^2 + 3x + 97), and only one mathematician knew how to solve them. His name was Scipione del Ferro. Thou...