Tartaglia, Niccolò

Related Category: Mathematics: Biographies

(nēk-kōlô´ tärtä´lyä), c.1500–1557, Italian engineer and mathematician. Largely self-educated, he taught mathematics at Verona, Brescia, and Venice. A pioneer in applying mathematics to artillery, he recorded his results in Della nova scientia (1537). He developed a solution for cubic equations that Geronimo Cardano (with his pupil Ludovico Ferrari) completed and published in his Ars magna (1545), thereby precipitating a bitter dispute; Tartaglia published his version as Quesiti et invenzioni diverse (1546). He wrote also a treatise on pure and applied mathematics, General trattato di numeri et misure (6 parts, 1556–60) and made Italian translations of works of Euclid and Archimedes.