----- Forwarded message from Herman Rubin -----
Galileo questioned the conclusions which had been obtained
from Aristotle's philosophizing....
Even the use of "algebraic" notation escaped the people who would
have done much more if they had it. It was a half millennium after
Archimedes and Euclid before Diophantus introduced the idea of *a*
symbol for an unknown quantity, and not until roughly 1600 that
Viete came up with multiple symbols.
----- End of forwarded message from Herman Rubin -----
Actually, letters are used as variables by Aristotle in his logical
works, but apparently mathematicians did not notice!-)
_
| | Robert W. Hayden
| | Department of Mathematics
/ | Plymouth State College MSC#29
| | Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264 USA
| * | Rural Route 1, Box 10
/ | Ashland, NH 03217-9702
| ) (603) 968-9914 (home)
L_____/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
fax (603) 535-2943 (work)
