ABSTRACT

The idea to reduce the solution of quadratic equations to essentially one algebraic operation i.e. taking radicals started with the Babylonians (about 400 BC). In the texts known to us examples are treated but always such that only squares appeared under the radical, for other cases only rough approximation methods were available. The Greeks with their predominantly geometric methods did not produce many new ideas in this direction and one has to wait for Heron (10-75) and Diophantes (200-284) to see the rediscovery of algebraic formulation.