La Habra High School
Math History Timeline

---

Renaissance
1400 - 1550 A.D.

1400	Madhava of Sangamagramma proves a number of results about infinite sums giving Taylor expansions of trigonometric functions. He uses these to find an approximation for p correct to 11 decimal places.
1434	Alberti studies the representation of 3-dimensional objects and writes the first general treatise Della Pictura on the laws of perspective.
1482	Campanus of Novara's edition of Euclid's Elements becomes the first mathematics book to be printed.
1489	Widman writes an arithmetic book in German which contains the first appearance of + and - signs.
1514	Vander Hoecke uses the + and - signs.
1515	Del Ferro discovers a formula to solve cubic equations.
1525	Rudolff introduces a symbol resembling Ö for square roots in his Die Coss the first German algebra book. He understands that x 0 = 1.
1533	Frisius publishes a method for accurate surveying using trigonometry. He is the first to propose the triangulation method.
1535	Tartaglia solves the cubic equation independently of del Ferro.
1540	Ferrari discovers a formula to solve quartic equations.
1543	Copernicus publishes De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres). It gives a full account of the Copernican theory, namely that the Sun (not the Earth) is at rest in the centre of the Universe.
1544	Stifel publishes Arithmetica integra which contains binomial coefficients and the notation +, -, Ö
1545	Cardan publishes Ars Magna giving the formula that will solve any cubic equation based on Tartaglia's work and the formula for quartics discovered by Ferrari.

Links:
1300 to 1500 1500 to 1600 on MacTutor History of Mathematics	Search for