Solution of The Cubic: A Simple Version of Formula
Solution of The Cubic: A Simple Version of Formula
Jasbir S Chahal
1. Introduction
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GENERAL I ARTICLE
The next step was to solve the cubic. The Arabs and
the Chinese worked out special cases of the cubic numer-
ically. But it took almost a thousand years from Brah-
magupta's time to find a general solution to the cubic,
often attributed to the Italian Cardano. The story of
its discovery is as dramatic as it can be in the world of
mathematics.
Squeaxno, adtwix
Noesquax, adsub
Axesquno, subadsub
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GENERAL I ARTICLE
It was only after Cardano had published the solution of We owe our tradition
the cubic in 1545 that Francois Viete (1540-1603) intro- of using earlier
duced, in his book The Analytic Art, our present usage letters a, b, C, ... for
of letters to represent unknown quantities. He used vow- constants and the
els for variables and consonants for constants. However, later ones x, y, z, ...
we owe our tradition of using earlier letters a, b, c, for variables to
for constants and the later ones x, y, z, for variables
Descartes.
to Descartes. Viete had no symbol for equality. It was
Robert Recorde who introduced the symbol = for equal-
ity in 1557. The signs + and - appeared for the first
time in Germany at the end of the fifteenth century as
symbols for surplus and deficit in business records. In
1514, the Dutch mathematician Vander Hoecke became
the first to use them in algebraic expressions. Thomas
Harriot was the first (in 1631) to use a dot for multipli-
cation, and he is also responsible for the inequality signs
< and >. In the same year (1631) William Oughtred in-
troduced the cross sign x for multiplication. The square
root symbol V was invented by Christoff Rudolff (1510-
1558), though some historians dispute it. In 1655, John
Wallis was the first to use the symbol 00 for infinity,
probably suggested by the late Roman symbol 00 for a
millennium. For more, see [4].
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GENERAL I ARTICLE
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GENERAL I ARTICLE
out the solution himself, Tartaglia easily defeated Fiore Cardano no longer
who had inherited the solution from his teacher. felt an obligation to
Tartaglia as he would
At that time Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) was lectur-
only be publishing the
ing in Milan on algebra. When he heard about Tarta-
glia's solution he wrote to Tartaglia. He wanted to see same solution found
the solution so that it could be included in his lec- independently some
tures on algebra. Tartaglia showed the solution only 25 years earlier by a
after extracting an oath from Cardano that it would mathematician now
not be included in Cardano's forthcoming book, even deceased.
with full credit to him. Tartaglia wanted to publish it
himself. Cardano kept his promise but assisted by his
brilliant student Lodovico Ferrari (1522-1565), started
working on the problem himself. Ferrari even managed
to solve the fourth degree equation. But their solutions
depended on reducing the problem to the cases solved
by Tartaglia.
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GENERAL I ARTICLE
for d = 0, 1, 2.
4. Cardano's Formula
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GENERAL I ARTICLE
( 1- V; i) z2 - vis Z + 1 = O.
-b+~ -b-~
Xl = and X2 = .
2 2
For this, we modify the traditional definition D = - (4a 3 +
27b2 ) of the discriminant of x 3 + ax + b slightly. Our de-
finition of the discriminant .6. of x 3 + ax + b is
.6.=----
4a 3 + 27b 2
(4)
27
Let WI and W2 be the two imaginary cube roots of unity:
27rj 27rj
Wj = cos 3 + i sin 3 (j = 1,2).
(5)
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GENERAL I ARTICLE
-b + ~ -b - ~= -a 3 /27.
2 2
(6)
such that
(7)
The equations (6), (7) and (8) taken together are called
Cardano's formulas.
Proof. Plug each number from (8) in (3) and use (5),
(6) and (7).
x3 - 1 = o.
Here a = 0 and b = -1, so D = 1. From (6), we get
01 = 1 and 02 = o. It follows from (8) that the three
roots of x 3 - 1 are 1 + 0, WI 1 + W2 0, W2 1 + WI 0,
that is, they are 1, WI, W2. This agrees with what we
already know, that is 1,w,w 2 are the three solutions of
x 3 - 1 = (x - 1)(x 2 + X + 1) = 0, where W = WI or W2 is
a primitive cube root of unity.
i) x 3 - 2x +4 = 0, ii) x 3 + x 2 - 2x - 1 = O.
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(9)
Errata
Resonance, Vol.lI, No 7, July 2006
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