Philadelphia Area Seminar on the History of Mathematics

Thursday, January 18, 2024 - 6:30pm to 8:00pm

Jeffrey Oaks

University of Indianapolis

There are many seemingly minor yet consistent differences in wording, procedure, and notation between what we read in pre-Vietan algebra and what we practice today. Together with how the earlier authors describe their work, they point to a radically different way of understanding monomials, polynomials, and equations. In this talk I describe this premodern algebra, focusing mainly on medieval Arabic algebra, though what I say applies equally to Diophantus, medieval Latin and Italian algebra, as well as the algebra of sixteenth-century Europe. Some attention will be given to delineating the role of algebra in premodern mathematics and to the concept of number upon which the concept of monomial was based.