Timeline of Mathematics - 16th Century

16th Century

• 1501 — Nilakantha Somayaji writes the “Tantra Samgraha.”
• 1520 — Scipione dal Ferro develops a method for solving “depressed” cubic equations (cubic equations without an x2 term), but does not publish.
• 1522 — Adam Ries explained the use of Arabic digits and their advantages over Roman numerals.
• 1535 — Niccolo Tartaglia independently develops a method for solving depressed cubic equations but also does not publish.
• 1539 — Gerolamo Cardano learns Tartaglia's method for solving depressed cubics and discovers a method for depressing cubics, thereby creating a method for solving all cubics.
• 1540 — Lodovico Ferrari solves the quartic equation.
• 1544 — Michael Stifel publishes “Arithmetica integra”.
• 1550 — Jyeshtadeva, a Kerala school mathematician, writes the “Yuktibhasa”, the world's first calculus text, which gives detailed derivations of many calculus theorems and formulae.
• 1572 — Rafael Bombelli writes "Algebra" teatrise and uses imaginary numbers to solve cubic equations.
• 1596 — Ludolf van Ceulen computes π to twenty decimal places using inscribed and circumscribed polygons.