(246~330)

Live to 84 years old

The life story of Diophantu is little known. However, in a relic about 500 AD, The Greek anthology﹞, most of them were compiled by the grammarian Dorus, including 46 short poems related to algebra. The arithmetic of Diophantine is about number theory. It discusses linear, quadratic and individual cubic equations, and a large number of indefinite equations. Now, for indefinite equations with integral coefficients, if only integer solutions are considered, such equations are called Diophantine equations, which is a branch of number theory. But don't solve Diophantine as an integer, just seek a positive rational number. From another perspective, arithmetic can also be classified as algebra. Algebra is different from other disciplines in that it introduces unknowns and operates them. Diophantine arithmetic can be regarded as algebra in introducing unknowns, creating symbols of unknowns and establishing equations (although there is no modern equation form). Since the Pythagorean school, Greek mathematics has been interested in geometry. They believe that only propositions that have been proved by geometry are reliable. For the sake of logical rigor, algebra also puts on the coat of geometry. All algebraic problems, even the solution of simple linear equations, are included in the geometric model. It was not until Diophantine that algebra was liberated from the bondage of geometry. He thinks that algebraic method is more suitable for solving problems than geometric deductive statement, and the high originality and originality shown in the process of solving problems are unique in Greek mathematics. It is not unreasonable that he was called "the father of algebra" by later generations.