Definition:Galois Theory/Historical Note

Historical Note on Galois Theory

The discipline of Galois theory dates back as far as $1600$ BCE, when the mathematicians of ancient Babylon worked out how to solve the quadratic equation.

In the $16$th century, the technique leaked out into the public that the cubic equation was also soluble.

Soon after that, Lodovico Ferrari extended this method to show how to solve the quartic.

The quintic remained unsolved until the early $19$th century, at which point Paolo Ruffini and Niels Henrik Abel proved it insoluble.

At around the same time, Évariste Galois produced his own approach to the problem, whose elegance initiated the field of study known now as Galois theory.

Sources

• 2004: Ian Stewart: Galois Theory (3rd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Historical Introduction