Talk:Diophantus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics. | ||||
| Mathematics grading: | B Class | Mid Importance | Field: Mathematicians | ||
| Needs breaking up into sections, plus more on his mathematical work. Tompw 16:01, 7 October 2006 (UTC) A vital article. | |||||
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. | ||
| B | This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ] (If you rated the article, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.) |
||
The page says:
The answer is determined from two methods: 1. Finding the common multiple of 12, 6, and 7 (which is 84). 2. Taking 14 (the age up to which would be considered a boy; one-sixth of his life) multiplied by 6, which equals 84.
The first method doesn't seem to make sense. It doesn't include, for instance, the information that he died four years before his son, which affects the answer.
The second method relies on knowledge that 14 is an important age in Hellenistic cultures, which isn't necessary.
The reference correctly shows how this problem is solved.
[edit] Reverted to more accepted statement
The documentary sources cited in this article refer to Diophantus as an ancient Greek Mathemetician. Alledging he was of Babylonian birth or not Greek is not supported.
[edit] "the fully symbolic algebra that al-Khwarizmi would develop much later."
This is not true, al-Khwarizmi's algebra was fully rhetorical, even the numbers were spelled out! I have inserted a direct quote from "A history of mathematics" by Carl B Boyer into the article (with reference) and have removed the factually incorrect statement. self 06:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
