Diophantus Arithmetica
Aritmética de Diofanto y ecuaciones diofánticas
- Date
- c. 250 CE · confidence low
- Place
- Alexandria, Egypt
- Credited to
- Diophantus of Alexandria
- People
- 👤 Diofanto de Alejandría201–284
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Collection of problems seeking rational or integer solutions to polynomial equations, with an abbreviated notation for the unknown and its powers (syncopated algebra). It directly inspired Fermat.
Fermat wrote his famous marginal note in Bachet's edition of the Arithmetica.
What it led to
- Fermat's Last Theorem
- algebraic number theory
- arithmetic geometry
Built on
- Pythagorean arithmetic
- Babylonian algebra