Mathematics in the Portuguese discoveries

The different languages of Algebra

Target: to explore some aspects of the history of Algebra

Tourist route: Jeronimos Monastery - Marine Museum - Monument to the Discoveries - Lisbon Story Centre - Belem Tower - Belem Gardens - Coaches Museum - Águas Livres Aqueduct - World of Discoveries (Oporto)




The contexts in which algebraic questions were put and the modes of expression, both problems and resolutive reasoning, have been changing over the centuries.


In a historical perspective, it is possible to observe the different languages of Algebra, namely, when going through its different phases: Rhetorical Algebra, Syncopated Algebra and Symbolic Algebra.


Among his various treatises, Pedro Nunes wrote the “Libro de Algebra en Arithmetica y Geometria”. In fact, between the discovery of the resolution of the equations of the third and fourth degree by Italian algebraists and the invention of literal calculus of François Viète, no other treatise on Algebra reached to the level of Pedro Nunes.

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