"The famous problems of antiquity doubling the cube, angle trisection, and squaring the circle]... were now disposed of by Descartes in a matter-of-fact statement that any problem which leads to an equation of the first degree is capable of a geometric solution by straight-edge only; that a straight-edge [and] compass construction is equivalent to the solution of a quadratic equation; but that if a problem leads to an irreducible equation of degree higher than the second, its geometrical solution is not possible by means of a ruler and compass only."
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Natural philosophersCatholics from FrancePhilosophers from FranceMathematicians from FrancePhysicists from France
Original Language: English
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Sources
Tobias Dantzig, Number: The Language of Science (1930).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
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René Descartes
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