plained a variety of numerical methods for solving equations. The Latin West acquired much of this learning during the 12th century, the great century of translation. Together with translations of the Greek classics, these Muslim works were responsible for the growth of mathematics in the West during the late Middle Ages. Italian mathematicians such as Leonardo Fibonacci and Luca Pacioli, one of the many 15th-century writers on algebra and arithmetic for merchants, depended heavily on Arabic sources for their knowledge. Western Renaissance Mathematics Although the late medieval period saw some fruitful mathematical considerations of problems of infinity by writers such as Nicole Oresme, it was not until the early 16th century that a truly important mathematical discovery was made in the West. The discovery, an algebraic formula for the solution of both the cubic and quartic equations, was published in 1545 by the Italian mathematician Gerolamo Cardano in his Ars Magna. The discovery drew the attention of mathematicians to complex numbers and stimulated a search for solutions to equations of degree higher than 4. It was this search, in turn, that led to the first work on group theory (Group) at the end of the 18th century, and to the theory of equations developed by the French mathematician variste Galois in the early 19th century. The 16th century also saw the beginnings of modern algebraic symbolism (Mathematical Symbols), as well as the remarkable work on the solution of equations by the French mathematician Franois Vite. His writings influenced many mathematicians of the following century, including Pierre de Fermat in France and Isaac Newton in England. Mathematics Since the 16th Century Europeans dominated in the development of mathematics after the Renaissance. 17th Century During the 17th century, the greatest advances were made in mathematics since the time of Archimedes and Apollonius. The century opened with the discovery of l...
