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Christoph Rudolff (born 1499 in
''Die Coss Christoffs Rudolffs''
1499 births 1545 deaths People from Jawor 16th-century German mathematicians 16th-century German writers 16th-century German male writers {{Germany-mathematician-stub
Christoph Rudolff (born 1499 in Jawor
Jawor (german: Jauer) is a town in south-western Poland with 22,890 inhabitants (2019). It is situated in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship (from 1975 to 1998 it was in the former Legnica Voivodeship). It is the seat of Jawor County, and lies appr ...
, Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
, died 1545 in Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
) was the author of the first German textbook on algebra
Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics.
Elementary ...
.
From 1517 to 1521, Rudolff was a student of Henricus Grammateus
Henricus Grammateus (also known as Henricus Scriptor, Heinrich Schreyber or Heinrich Schreiber; 1495 – 1525 or 1526) was a German mathematician. He was born in Erfurt. In 1507 he started to study at the University of Vienna, where he subsequen ...
(Schreyber from Erfurt) at the University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...
and was the author of a book computing, under the title: ' (Nimble and beautiful calculation via the artful rules of algebra hich
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
are so commonly called "coss").
He introduced the radical symbol (√) for the square root
In mathematics, a square root of a number is a number such that ; in other words, a number whose ''square'' (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or ⋅ ) is . For example, 4 and −4 are square roots of 16, because .
...
. It is believed that this was because it resembled a lowercase "r" (for "radix"), though there is no direct evidence. Cajori only says that a "dot is the embryo of our present symbol for the square root" though it is "possible, perhaps probable" that Rudolff's later symbols are not dots but 'r's.
Furthermore, he used the meaningful definition that ''x''0 = 1.
See also
*History of mathematical notation
The history of mathematical notation includes the commencement, progress, and cultural diffusion of mathematical symbols and the conflict of the methods of notation confronted in a notation's move to popularity or inconspicuousness. Mathematical ...
Notes
References
* * * *External links
''Die Coss Christoffs Rudolffs''
1499 births 1545 deaths People from Jawor 16th-century German mathematicians 16th-century German writers 16th-century German male writers {{Germany-mathematician-stub