Why solving the cubic is important?

Question

Why people in sixteenth century (or the people now ) interested in solving the cubic? There were (I think) no number theoretic or relation to science that time, and the only impression I get from reading books is that they did it to one-up other persons on competitions.

That's not a mathematical Motivation. What was the mathematical Motivation ? In twenty first century, what's the motivation to do that ?

Curiosity is certainly a mathematical motivation, one which still exists sometimes in the twenty-first century. — Zev Chonoles, Jul 24 '17 at 02:48
Also see What is an example of real application of cubic equations?. — dxiv, Jul 24 '17 at 03:03
The roots of a cubic equation exhibit some circumstances that do not occur with a quadratic equation. For a brief historical account see the Wikipedia article. Of particular interest is the casus irreducibilis or "irreducible case". The possibility arises that a cubic polynomial has three distinct real roots, but complex numbers are necessary in order to express these "by radicals". — hardmath, Jul 24 '17 at 03:13

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 24 '17 at 02:53

2

Natural to try this after solving quadratic equations. You're just going up 1 degree. Then there's the quartic; and degree 5 and higher have no closed form...

answered Jul 24 '17 at 02:53

Why solving the cubic is important?

1 Answers1