Diophantos of Alexandria: A Study in the History of Greek Algebra

The Greek mathematician Diophantos of Alexandria lived during the third century CE. Apart from his age (he reached eighty-four), very little else is known about his life. Even the exact form of his name is uncertain, and only a few incomplete manuscripts of his greatest work, Arithmetica, have survived. In this impressive scholarly investigation, first published in 1885, Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) meticulously presents what can be gleaned from Greek, Latin and Arabic sources, and guide...