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Diophantus lived in Alexandria. His book Arithmetica is considered
the first book on algebra. In it he gives methods for finding integer
solutions of algebraic equations. Arithmetica was read and studied for
more than a thousand years. Fermat made some of his most important discoveries
while studying this book. Diophantus' major contribution is the use
of symbols to stand for the unknowns in a problem. Although his symbolism
is not as simple as what we use today, it was a major advance over writing
everything in words. Our common algebraic notation did not come into
common use until the 17th century.
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