In the early 1970s mathematician Donald Knuth spent a sabbatical with his wife in Norway. The time was meant to be spent relaxing. Yet one night he woke up his partner in a state of agitation. He ...
§CQ.1 THE FIRST GREAT ADVANCE in algebra after the Middle Ages was the general solution of the cubic equation, immediately followed by a solution for the quartic. I tell the full story in the next ...