"[T]he irreducible case of equations of the third degree... presents a new form of algebraical expressions which have found extensive application in analysis... it is constantly giving rise to unprofitable inquiries with a view to reducing the imaginary form to a real form and... it thus presents in algebra a problem which may be placed upon the same footing with the famous problems of the duplication of the cube and the squaring of the circle in geometry."
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Lectures on Elementary Mathematics
Lectures on Elementary Mathematics (1898) is the earliest English translation of Joseph Louis Lagrange's 1795 publication, Leçons élémentaires sur les mathematiques, containing a series of lectures delivered the same year at the Ecole Normale. The work was translated and edited by Thomas J. McCormack, and a second edition, from which the following quotes are taken, appeared in 1901.
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