Quintic Equations and How to Solve Them

This monograph explores the well-known problem of the solvability of polynomial equations.

While equations up to the fourth degree are solvable, there are, as demonstrated by Niels Henrik Abel, no general algebraic formulas leading to the solution of equations of fifth or higher degree. Nevertheless, some fifth degree (quintic) equations are indeed solvable. The author describes how Galois theory can be used to identify those quintic equations that can be solved algebraically and then show...