Rudolff
Christoff Rudolff
Born: 1499 in Jauer, Silesia (now Jawor, Poland)
Died: 1545 in Vienna, Austria
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Rudolff's book Coss , written in 1525, is the first German algebra book. The reason for the title is that cosa is a thing which was used for the unknown. Algebraists were called cossists, and algebra the cossic art, for many years. Rudolff calculated with rational and irrational polynomials and was aware that ax
+ b = cx has 2 roots. He used 
for square roots (the first to use this notation) and 
for cube roots and 
for 4 th roots. He has the idea that x
=1 which is important.
Other Web sites:
Rice University, USA
References:
- Dictionary of Scientific Biography
- M Cantor, Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik II (Leipzig, 1913), 397-399, 425-429.
- M Terquem, Christophe Rudolff, Annali di scienze matematiche e fisiche 8 (1857), 325-338.
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JOC/EFR February 1996