Cardan

Cardan is famed for his work The Great Art which was the first Latin treatise devoted solely to algebra.

Cardan studied at Pavia and Padua receiving a doctorate in medicine in 1525. He was professor of mathematics at Milan, Pavia and Bologna leaving each after some scandal.

Cardan lectured and wrote on mathematics, medicine, astronomy, astrology, alchemy, and physics. In fact his fame as a doctor was such that the Archbishop of St Andrews, on suffering as he thought from consumption, sent for Cardan. Cardan is reported to have visited Scotland to treat the Archbishop who was not suffering from consumption and made a complete recovery.

He is famed for his work Ars Magna which was the first Latin treatise devoted solely to algebra. This book made known the solution of the cubic by radicals and the solution of the quartic by radicals. These were proved by Tartaglia and Ferrari respectively. Ferrari was in fact a pupil of Cardan's.

In Ars Magna appears the first computation with complex numbers although Cardan did not properly understand it.

Cardan's Liber de ludo aleae in 1563 was the first study of the theory of probability. De vita propria liber in 1575 is Cardan's autobiography. It is one of the first modern psychological autobiographies.

Cardan was eventually forbidden to lecture or publish books. In 1570 he was imprisoned on a charge of having cast the horoscope of Christ. In 1571 Pope Pius V granted him an annuity for life and he settled in Rome and became astrologer to the papal court.

Cardan is reported to have correctly predicted the exact date of his own death. He achieved this by committing suicide.