Niccolo Fontana Tartaglia.

Niccolo Fontana Tartaglia (1499 or 1500 - December 13, 1557) was a mathematician, an engineer (designing fortifications), surveyor (of topography, seeking the best means of defense or offense) and bookkeeper from the then Republic of Venice (now Italy). He published many books, including the first Italian translations of Archimedes and Euclid, and an acclaimed compilation of mathematics. Tartaglia was the first to apply mathematics to the investigation of the paths of cannonballs; his work was later validated by Galileo's studies on falling bodies. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1000x1167, 259 KB) , from http://web4. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1000x1167, 259 KB) , from http://web4. ... Events January 8 - Louis XII of France marries Anne of Brittany due to law set by his predecessor, Louis VIII July 22 - Battle of Dornach - The Swiss decisively defeat the Imperial army of Emperor Maximilian I. July 28 - First Battle of Lepanto - The Turkish navy wins a decisive victory over... // Events Europes population was ~60 million. ... December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events Spain is effectively bankrupt. ... A mathematician is a person whose area of study and research is mathematics. ... Look up Engineer on Wiktionary, the free dictionary An engineer is someone who practices the profession of engineering – a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems using technology. ... Location within Italy Venice (Italian: Venezia), the city of canals, is the capital of the region of Veneto (Italian: Venetia) and of the province of Venice, 45°26′ N 12°19′ E, population 271,663 (census estimate 2004-01-01). ... Archimedes of Syracuse. ... Euclid Euclid of Alexandria (Greek: ) (ca. ... Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Mathematics Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mathematics Look up Mathematics on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikimedia Commons has more media related to: Mathematics Bogomolny, Alexander: Interactive Mathematics Miscellany and Puzzles. ... Galileo Galilei (Pisa, February 15, 1564 – Arcetri, January 8, 1642), was a Tuscan astronomer, philosopher, and physicist who is closely associated with the scientific revolution. ...

There is a story that Tartaglia learned only half the alphabet from a private tutor before funds ran out, and he had to learn the rest for himself. Be that as it may, he was essentially self-taught. He and his contemporaries, working outside the academies, were responsible for the spread of classic works in modern languages among the educated middle class.

His edition of Euclid in 1543, the first translation of the Elements into any modern European language, was especially significant. For two centuries Euclid had been taught from two Latin translations taken from an Arabic source; these contained errors in Book V, the Eudoxian theory of proportion, which rendered it unusable. Tartaglia's edition was based on Zamberti's Latin translation of an uncorrupted Greek text, and rendered Book V correctly. He also wrote the first modern and useful commentary on the theory. Later, the theory was an essential tool for Galileo, just as it had been for Archimedes. // Events February 21 - Battle of Wayna Daga - A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeat the armies of Adal led by Ahmed Gragn. ... Eudoxus of Cnidus (Greek Εύδοξος) (410 or 408 BC - 355 or 347 BC) was a Greek astronomer, mathematician, physician, scholar and friend of Plato. ... Archimedes of Syracuse. ...

Tartaglia is perhaps best known today for his conflicts with Gerolamo Cardano. Cardano nagged Tartaglia into revealing his solution to the cubic equations, by promising not to publish them. Several years later, Cardano happened to see unpublished work by Scipione dal Ferro who independently came up with the same solution as Tartaglia. As the unpublished work was dated before Tartaglia's, Cardano decided his promise could be broken, and included Tartaglia's solution in his next publication. In spite of the fact that Cardano credited his discovery, Tartaglia was extremely upset. He responded by publicly insulting Cardano personally as well as professionally. Gerolamo Cardano or Jerome Cardan or Girolamo Cardan (September 24, 1501 - September 21, 1576) was a celebrated Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer, and gambler. ... Graph of a cubic polynomial: y = x3/5 + 4x2/5 - 7x/5 - 2 = 1/5 (x+5)(x+1)(x-2) In mathematics, a cubic equation is a polynomial equation in which the highest occurring power of the unknown is the third power. ...

Tartaglia is also known for having given an expression (Tartaglia's formula) for the volume of a tetrahedron (incl. any irregular tetrahedra) in terms of the distance values measured pairwise between its four corners: Volume, also called capacity, is a quantification of how much space an object occupies. ... A tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra) is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, three of which meet at each vertex. ... The distance between two points is the length of a straight line segment between them. ...

where d_ij is the distance between vertices i and j. This is a generalization of Heron's formula for the area of a triangle. In geometry, Herons formula (also called Heros formula) states that the area of a triangle whose sides have lengths a, b and c is where s is the triangles semiperimeter: (see also square root). ... A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a two-dimensional figure with three vertices and three sides which are straight line segments. ...

External link

• Biography at the MacTutor archivedu:Niccolo Fontana Tartaglia