According to Jacques Sesiano in "An Introduction to the History of Algebra" (AMS, 2009), this problem is based on a Babylonian clay tablet circa 1800 B.C. (VAT 8389, Museum of the Ancient Near East).

This video explores the history of Co-ordinates, as the characters meet Rene Descartes, who explains his system of Cartesian co-ordinates.

You might be most familiar with “x” from math class. Many algebra problems use “x” as a variable to stand in for an unknown quantity. But why is “x” the letter chosen for this role?

That’s one lesson I took from “History of Mathematics,” an online ... including counting, arithmetic, algebra, geometry and prime numbers. Each gallery has a short timeline and features ...

Praxis the robot and Alan the “human man” lead the letter X through the development of algebra from Ancient Egypt to Rene Descartes. Discuss the development of algebra as a practical way of ...

THE roots of algebra, as John Derbyshire tells us, go back to the ancient world: the Babylonians left cuneiform tablets showing simple algebraic problems. Its actual birth is usually credited to ...

THIS is far from being a mere reprint of the first edition; in fact, it is in great part a new work, which, in conjunction with Tannery's critical edition of the “Arithmetica,” makes ...

Novelist Jeffers (The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois) presents a collection of incisive essays exploring “the crossroads”: “a location of difficulty and possibility, a boundary Continue ...