A somewhat different, and idiosyncratic, orientation to solving mathematical problems can be found in the work of a later Greek, Diophantus of Alexandria (fl. c. AD 250), who developed original methods for solving problems that, in retrospect, may be seen as linear or quadratic equations. Yet even Diophantus, in line with the basic Greek conception of mathematics, considered only positive rational solutions; he called a problem “absurd” whose only solutions were negative numbers. Diophantus solved specific problems using ad hoc methods convenient for the problem at hand, but he did not provide general solutions. The problems that he solved sometimes had more than one (and in some cases even infinitely many) solutions, yet he always stopped after finding the first one. In problems involving quadratic equations, he never suggested that such equations might have two solutions.
On the other hand, Diophantus was the first to introduce some kind of systematic symbolism for polynomial equations. A polynomial equation is composed of a sum of terms, in which each term is the product of some constant and a nonnegative power of the variable or variables. Because of their great generality, polynomial equations can express a large proportion of the mathematical relationships that occur in nature—for example, problems involving area, volume, mixture, and motion. In modern notation, polynomial equations in one variable take the form
anxn + an−1xn−1 + … + a2x2 + a1x + a0 = 0,
where the ai are known as coefficients and the highest power of n is known as the degree of the equation (for example, 2 for a quadractic, 3 for a cubic, 4 for a quartic, 5 for a quintic, and so on). Diophantus’s symbolism was a kind of shorthand, though, rather than a set of freely manipulable symbols. A typical case was:
ΔνΔβζδΜβΚνβανγ
(meaning: 2x4 − x3 − 3x2 + 4x + 2). Here M represents units, ζ the unknown quantity, Kν its square, and so forth. Since there were no negative coefficients, the terms that corresponded to the unknown and its third power appeared to the right of the special symbol . This symbol did not function like the equals sign of a modern equation, however; there was nothing like the idea of moving terms from one side of the symbol to the other. Also, since all of the Greek letters were used to represent specific numbers, there was no simple and unambiguous method of representing abstract coefficients in an equation.
A typical Diophantine problem would be: “Find two numbers such that each, after receiving from the other a given number, will bear to the remainder a given relation.” In modern terms, this problem would be stated
(x + a)/(y − a) = r, (y + b)/(x − b) = s.
Diophantus always worked with a single unknown quantity ζ. In order to solve this specific problem, he assumed as given certain values that allowed him a smooth solution: a = 30, r = 2, b = 50, s = 3. Now the two numbers sought were ζ + 30 (for y) and 2ζ − 30 (for x), so that the first ratio was an identity,
2ζ
/
ζ
= 2, that was fulfilled for any nonzero value of ζ. For the modern reader, substituting these values in the second ratio would result in
(ζ + 80)
/
(2ζ − 80)
= 3. By applying his solution techniques, Diophantus was led to ζ = 64. The two required numbers were therefore 98 and 94.
