"Vieta presented his analytic art as "the new algebra" and took its name from the ancient mathematical method of "analysis", which he understood to have been first discovered by Plato and so named by . Ancient analysis is the 'general' half of a method of discovering the unknown in geometry; the other half, "synthesis", being particular in character. The method was defined by Theon like this: analysis is the "taking of the thing sought as granted and proceeding by means of what follows to a truth that is uncontested"'. Synthesis, in turn, is "taking the thing that is granted and proceeding by means of what follows to the conculsion and comprehension of the thing sought" (Vietae 1992: 320). The transition from analysis to synthesis was called "conversion", depending on whether the discovery of the truth of a geometrical theorem or the solution ("construction") to a geometrical problem was being demonstrated, the analysis was called respectively "theoretical" or "problematical"."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
, "Nastalgia and Phenomenon: Hussel and Patočka on the End of the Ancient Cosmos," The Phenomenological Critique of Mathematisation and the Question of Responsibility: Formalisation and the Life-World (2015) ed., Ľubica Učník, Ivan Chvatík, Anita Williams, p. 71, Contributions to Phenomenology 76
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Vi%C3%A8te
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
François Viète
32 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by François Viète →
Related Quotes
"On symbolic use of equalities and proportions. Chapter II. The analytical method accepts as proven the most famous [ …"
"In mathematics there is a certain way of seeking the truth, a way which Plato is said first to have discovered and wh…"
"There is a certain way of searching for the truth in mathematics that Plato is said first to have discovered; Theon n…"
"Vieta's innovation contains three interrelated and interdependent aspects. ...methodical ...making calculation possib…"
"A major advance in notation with far-reaching consequences was François Viète's idea, put forward in his "Introductio…"
"Ars Magna, published in 1545... contains many valuable discoveries; but that which has been most celebrated is the ru…"
"Cossali has given the larger part of a quarto volume to the algebra of Cardan; his object being to establish the prio…"
"Rhaeticus was not a ready calculator only... Up to his time, the trigonometric functions had been considered always w…"
"Cardan applied the Hindoo rule of "false position" (called by him regula aurea) to the cubic, but this mode of approx…"
"Vieta [was] the most eminent French mathematician of the sixteenth century."