the publications of the

books:
the imaginary quantities:
their geometrical
interpretation and the
book titled as: digram of
argand

by argand (1768-1822)
a brief context

To understand the significance

of the news, it is necessary to
understand a brief context of
how mathematics had been
developing in ancient times.

Why was mathematics created?

Mathematics were created as a way to

quantify our world: count trade,
measure land... etc

 the numbers
and their
evolution
Although the numbers were born
to quantify the world, after a
while the mathematicians found
themselves with a problem
labeled as impossible.
 The way to solve it was by separating
mathematics from the real world and inventing
numbers so fanciful that they were called
imaginary.

we had to separate math from reality to

understand how reality really works

 How were
quadratic
equations
solved before?
before, people solved quadratic equations in a very different way
than today, they saw algebra as part of geometry and therefore
when people solved a quadratic equation they saw it as a
geometric problem
 How were the
cubic equations
then solved? the mathematician omar khayyam said about it::

Thanks to this geometric way of

thinking about the equations,
mathematicians could not easily

find an answer to the cubic

equations since the negative
answers are fundamental for the
answers of this equation.
 the mathematician scipione del ferro found in the 16th century a way to solve reduced cubic
equations, but would keep them secret for fear of being challenged by other mathematicians
who asked him to solve problems with cubic equations, it was not until his deathbed that he He
revealed to his disciple fior how reduced cubic equations were solved.
in a malicious act Antonio fior challenges
the mathematician nicola tartaglia, fior
sent him approximately 30 reduced cubic
problems, but nevertheless tartaglia in
the epur was able to solve the reduced
cubic, however fior was not able to solve
a single exercise sent by tartaglia
 how did Tartaglia
solve it?

tartaglia thinks that if in quadratic equations

he used a square, then in cubics he
would use a cube that you
can easily manipulate

 what
happened
after?
Despite being praised, Tartaglia refused to
tell the world the solution of the cubic
equations, until he was persuaded by the
scholar Gerodata Cardano on the condition
that he not tell anyone how they were
solved, some time later Cardano found the
way to solve a complete cubic equation
thanks to the manipulation of terms.
 But how is
this
related to
complex
numbers?

Time passes and Cardano finds equations in which, despite using

the known method, he realizes that for it to make sense, he
somehow has to put a negative area to find the equation.
 In Cardano's words the idea of ​negative roots is:
At that time,
mathematics interpreted
the square roots of
negative numbers as the
way in which
mathematics said that
the equation had no
solution.
 and then?

In spite of everything, 10 years

later the engineer Rafael Pombeli
contradicted Cardano and took the
negative roots as the solution of
the equation. pombeni takes
negative roots as a new type of
number.
 pombeli thinks that the terms in
cardano's solution can be
represented as a combination of
ordinary number and this new type of
number that includes the square root
of minus 1 as a solution, when
pombeli takes this as a solution and
reaches the final step of the
operation see how the negative roots
cancel and reveal the true solution
(4)
This is impressive since Cardano's method does work, you just
have to abandon the geometric proof that created it in the first
place.
the negative areas that have no existence in reality, must exist
as an intermediate step to reach reality
 mathematicians who
contributed to the
creation of complex
numbers

François Viète

completely changed the notation

leaving behind the geometric way in
which they saw algebraic problems
René descartes

use square roots of

negatives wisely by
making them popular
and recognizing their
usefulness

 leonhard euler

He was the first to

baptize the square root
of minus 1 as i apart
from finding several
more uses for it
 context
conclusion

from the beginning of mathematics

these were only seen as something
that was limited to geometry and what
we can see, however we realized that
mathematics could really go further
and thanks to it we can know that in
part, the real world works with whole
numbers, not real numbers.