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Gerolamo Cardano is certainly one of the most colorful figures in the
history of mathematics. He was the most renowned physician in Europe
in his day, yet throughout his life he was plagued by numerous maladies,
including ruptures, hemorrhoids, and an irrational fear of encountering
rabid dogs. A doting father, his beloved sons broke heart-his favorite
was eventually beheaded for murdering his wife. Cardano was also a compulsive
gambler; indeed, this vice may have driven him to write the Book on
Games of Chance, the first study of probability from a mathematical
point of view. In Cardano's major mathematical work, the Ars Magna,
he detailed the solution of the general third and fourth degree polynomial
equations. At the time of its publication, mathematicians were uncomfortable
even with negative numbers, but Cardano's formulas paved the way for
the acceptance not just of negative numbers, but also of imaginary numbers,
because they occurred naturally in solving polynomial equations.
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