Description

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 guides the reader through the algebraist's idiosyncratic style of mathematics, discussing his notation and originality. This was the first thorough survey of Diophantos' work to appear in English. Also reissued in this series are Heath's two-volume History of Greek Mathematics, his treatment of Greek astronomy through the work of Aristarchus of Samos, and his edition in modern notation of the Treatise on Conic Sections by Apollonius of Perga.