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).

University of New South Wales Honorary Professor Norman Wildberger has unveiled a potentially game-changing mathematical theory.

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?

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 ...

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? When and where did ...

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 ...