§CQ.1 THE FIRST GREAT ADVANCE in algebra after the Middle Ages was the general solution of the cubic equation, immediately followed by a solution for the quartic. I tell the full story in the next ...

Imaginary numbers began as a desperate solution to equations that seemed unsolvable. In the 1500s, Italian mathematicians working on cubic equations encountered the square root of negative one — a ...

Have you ever sat in a math classroom and wondered, “When will I ever use this?” You might have asked yourself this question when you first encountered “imaginary” numbers, and with good reason: What ...