23/03/2022

In Folha, Viana tells the story of a mathematical duel.

Imagem: Freepik

Reproduction of Marcelo Viana's column in Folha de S.Paulo

On August 10, 1548, two men met in the church of Santa Maria del Giordano in Milan for a fierce duel. Instead of swords, the weapons were mathematical ideas. But that did not make the fight any less merciless, for the victor would have glory and fortune; the loser shame and ostracism. For both, who had never escaped the poverty into which they were born, much was at stake.

Niccolò Fortuna (Tartaglia, meaning "stammerer," was a cruel nickname) was born in Brescia around 1500. His father died when he was 6 years old, leaving the family in poverty. Self-taught out of necessity, he discovered his talent for mathematics early on, which earned him jobs as a teacher in Verona and Venice. We know he had a family and lived in hardship.

In 1535, he gained fame by facing Antonio Maria del Fiore in a mathematical duel. Fiore had learned from his master Scipione del Ferro a method for solving equations of the form ^x³ + px = q. Tartaglia had rediscovered the solution and managed to extend it to other types of cubic equations. This allowed him to decisively defeat Fiore.

Ludovico Ferrari was born in Bologna in 1522. Having lost his father in childhood, he went to live with an uncle in Milan, where he became employed by Cardano. Recognizing the young man's exceptional brilliance, his employer taught him Greek, Latin, and mathematics, and soon began to use his services as a secretary. Ferrari repaid him with complete loyalty throughout his life. He never published mathematical works under his own name, and his best discoveries—including the spectacular solution of the fourth-degree equation—he ceded for publication in "Artis Magnae".