Gerolamo Cardano

Gerolamo (or Girolamo,[2] or Geronimo) Cardano (Italian: [dʒeˈrɔlamo karˈdano];

Gerolamo Cardano
French: Jérôme Cardan; Latin: Hieronymus Cardanus; 24 September 1501 – 21
September 1576) was an Italian polymath, whose interests and proficiencies ranged
from being a mathematician, physician, biologist, physicist, chemist, astrologer,
astronomer, philosopher, writer, and gambler.[3] He was one of the most influential
mathematicians of theRenaissance, and was one of the key figures in the foundation
of probability and the earliest introducer of the binomial coefficients and the
[4]
binomial theorem in the western world. He wrote more than 200 works on science.

Cardano partially invented and described several mechanical devices including the
combination lock, the gimbal consisting of three concentric rings allowing a
supported compass or gyroscope to rotate freely, and the Cardan shaft with universal
joints, which allows the transmission of rotary motion at various angles and is used
in vehicles to this day. He made significant contributions to hypocycloids, published
in De proportionibus, in 1570. The generating circles of these hypocycloids were
later named Cardano circles or cardanic circles and were used for the construction of
Gerolamo Cardano
the first high-speed printing presses.[5]
Born 24 September 1501
Today, he is well known for his achievements in algebra. He made the first Pavia
systematic use of negative numbers in Europe, published with attribution the
Died 21 September 1576
solutions of other mathematicians for the cubic and quartic equations, and
(aged 74)
acknowledged the existence ofimaginary numbers.
Italy
Nationality Italian
Alma mater University of Pavia
Contents
Known for Polymath, founder of
Early life and education various fields and
Early career as a physician inventor of several
Mathematics machines
Other contributions Scientific career
De Subtilitate (1550)
Fields Science, maths,
Later years and death philosophy, and
References in literature literature
Works
Influences Archimedes,
See also Muḥammad ibn Mūsā
References al-Khwārizmī,
Citations
Leonardo Fibonacci
Sources
Influenced Blaise Pascal,[1]
External links
François Viète, Pierre
de Fermat,[1] Isaac
Newton, Gottfried
Early life and education Wilhelm von Leibniz,
Maria Gaetana
Agnesi, Joseph-Louis
He was born in Pavia, Lombardy, the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano, a Lagrange, Carl
mathematically giftedjurist, lawyer, and close personal friend of Leonardo da Vinci. Friedrich Gauss
In his autobiography, Cardano wrote that his mother, Chiara Micheri, had taken
"various abortive medicines" to terminate the pregnancy; he was "taken by violent
means from my mother; I was almost dead." She was in labour for three days.[6]
Shortly before his birth, his mother had to move from Milan to Pavia to escape the
Plague; her three other children died from the disease.

After a depressing childhood, with frequent illnesses, including impotence, and the
rough upbringing by his overbearing father, in 1520, Cardano entered the University
of Pavia against his father's wish, who wanted his son to undertake studies of law,
but Girolamo felt more attracted to philosophy and science. During the Italian War
of 1521-6, however, the authorities in Pavia were forced to close the university in
1524.[7] Cardano resumed his studies at the University of Padua, where he graduated
with a doctorate in medicine in 1525.[8] His eccentric and confrontational style did
not earn him many friends and he had a difficult time finding work after his studies
had ended. In 1525, Cardano repeatedly applied to the College of Physicians in
Milan, but was not admitted owing to his combative reputation and illegitimate
birth. However, he was consulted by many members of the College of Physicians
due to his irrefutable intelligence.[9]
De propria vita, 1821

Early career as a physician

Cardano wanted to practice medicine in a large, rich city like Milan, but he was denied a license to practice, so he settled for the town
of Saccolongo, where he practiced without a license. There, he married Lucia Banderini in 1531. Before her death in 1546, they had
three children, Giovanni Battista (1534), Chiara (1537) and Aldo (1543).[6] Cardano later wrote that those were the happiest days of
his life.

With the help of a few noblemen, Cardano obtained a teaching position in mathematics in Milan. Having finally received his medical
license, he practiced mathematics and medicine simultaneously, treating a few influential patients in the process. Because of this, he
became one of the most sought-after doctors in Milan. In fact, by 1536, he was able to quit his teaching position, although he was still
interested in mathematics. His notability in the medical field was such that the aristocracy tried to lure him out of Milan. Cardano
[10]
later wrote that he turned down offers from the kings of Denmark and France, and the Queen of Scotland.

Mathematics
Cardano was the first mathematician to make systematic use of negative numbers.[11] He published with attribution the solution of
Scipione del Ferro to the cubic equation and the solution of his student Lodovico Ferrari to the quartic equation in his 1545 book Ars
Magna. The solution to one particular case of the cubic equation [12] (in modern notation), had been
communicated to him in 1539 by Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia (who later claimed that Cardano had sworn not to reveal it, and engaged
Cardano in a decade-long dispute) in the form of a poem,[13] but Ferro's solution predated Fontana's.[10] In his exposition, he
acknowledged the existence of what are now calledimaginary numbers, although he did not understand their properties, described for
the first time by his Italian contemporary Rafael Bombelli. In Opus novum de proportionibus he introduced the binomial coefficients
and the binomial theorem.

Cardano was notoriously short of money and kept himself solvent by being an accomplished gambler and chess player. His book
about games of chance, Liber de ludo aleae ("Book on Games of Chance"), written around 1564,[14] but not published until 1663,
contains the first systematic treatment of probability,[15] as well as a section on effective cheating methods. He used the game of
throwing dice to understand the basic concepts of probability. He demonstrated the efficacy of defining odds as the ratio of
 favourable to unfavourable outcomes (which implies that the probability of an event is
given by the ratio of favourable outcomes to the total number of possible outcomes[16] ).
He was also aware of the multiplication rule for independent events but was not certain
about what values should be multiplied.[17]

Other contributions
Cardano's work with hypocycloids led him to the Cardan joint or gear mechanism, in
which a pair of gears with the smaller being one-half the size of the larger gear is used
converting rotational motion to linear motion with greater efficiency and precision than
a Scotch yoke, for example.[18] He is also credited with the invention of the Cardan
suspension or gimbal.

Portrait of Cardano on display at
the School of Mathematics and
Statistics, University of St
Andrews.
Cardano made several contributions to hydrodynamics and held that perpetual motion is
impossible, except in celestial bodies. He published two encyclopedias of natural
science which contain a wide variety of inventions, facts, and occult superstitions. He
also introduced the Cardan grille, a cryptographic writing tool, in 1550.

Someone also assigned to Cardano the credit for the invention of the so-called
Cardano's Rings, also called Chinese Rings, but it is very probable that they predate Cardano.

Significantly, in the history of education of the deaf, he said that deaf people were capable of using their minds, argued for the
importance of teaching them, and was one of the first to state that deaf people could learn to read and write without learning how to
speak first. He was familiar with a report byRudolph Agricola about a deaf mute who had learned to write.

De Subtilitate (1550)
As quoted from Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology:

The title of a work of Cardano's, published in 1552, De Subtilitate (corresponding to what would now be called
transcendental philosophy), would lead us to expect, in the chapter on minerals, many far fetched theories
characteristic of that age; but when treating of petrified shells, he decided that they clearly indicated the former
sojourn of the sea upon the mountains.[19]

Later years and death

Two of Cardano's children—Giovanni and Aldo Battista—came to ignoble ends. Giovanni Battista, Cardano's eldest and favorite son,
was tried and beheaded in 1560 for poisoning his wife,[10] after he discovered that their three children were not his. Aldo Battista was
a gambler, who stole money from his father, and so Gerolamo disinherited Aldo in 1569.

Cardano moved from Pavia to Bologna, in part because he believed that the decision to execute Giovanni was influenced by
Gerolamo's battles with the academic establishment in Pavia, and his colleagues' jealousy at his scientific achievements and also
because he was beset with allegations of sexual impropriety with his students.[6] Cardano was arrested by the Inquisition in 1570 for
unknown reasons, and forced to spend several months in prison and abjure his professorship. He moved to Rome, and received a
lifetime annuity from Pope Gregory XIII (after first having been rejected by Pope Pius V) and finished his autobiography. He was
accepted in the Royal College of Physicians, and as well as practising medicine he continued his philosophical studies until his death
in 1576.[4][6] Cardano is reported to have correctly predicted the exact date of his own death but it has been claimed that he achieved
this by committing suicide.[10][20]

References in literature
The seventeenth century English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne once possessed the ten volumes of the Leyden 1663
edition of the complete works of Cardan inhis library.[21]

Browne critically viewed Cardan as:

"that famous Physician of Milan, a great Enquirer of Truth, but too greedy a Receiver of it. He hath left many
excellent Discourses, Medical, Natural, and Astrological; the most suspicious are those two he wrote by admonition
in a dream, that is De Subtilitate & Varietate Rerum. Assuredly this learned man hath taken many things upon trust,
and although examined some, hath let slip many others. He is of singular use unto a prudent Reader; but unto him that
only desireth Hoties, or to replenish his head with varieties; like many others before related, either in the Original or
."[22]
confirmation, he may become no small occasion of Error

Richard Hinckley Allentells of an amusing reference made bySamuel Butler in his book Hudibras:

Cardan believ'd great states depend

Upon the tip o'th' Bear's tail's end;
That, as she wisk'd it t'wards the Sun,
Strew'd mighty empires up and down;
Which others say must needs be false,
Because your true bears have no tails.

Alessandro Manzoni's novel I Promessi Sposi portrays a pedantic scholar of the obsolete, Don Ferrante, as a great admirer of
Cardano. Significantly, he values him only for his superstitious and astrological writings; his scientific writings are dismissed because
they contradict Aristotle, but excused on the ground that the author of the astrological works deserves to be listened to even when he
is wrong.

English novelist E. M. Forster's Abinger Harvest, a 1936 volume of essays, authorial reviews and a play, provides a sympathetic
treatment of Cardano in the section titled 'The Past'. Forster believes Cardano was so absorbed in "self-analysis that he often forgot to
repent of his bad temper, his stupidity, his licentiousness, and love of revenge" (212).

Works
De malo recentiorum medicorum usu libellus, Venice, 1536 (on medicine).
Practica arithmetice et mensurandi singularis, Milan, 1577 (on mathematics).
Artis magnae, sive de regulis algebraicis(also known as Ars magna), Nuremberg, 1545 (on algebra).[23]

The Rules of Algebra: Ars Magna, Dover Books on Mathematics, translated by Witmer
, T. Richard, foreword by
Ore, Oystein, Dover Publications, 2007 [1968], p. 304,ISBN 978-0-486-45873-1
De immortalitate animorum, 1545.
Opus novum de proportionibus(on mechanics) (Archimedes Project).
Contradicentium medicorum(on medicine).
De subtilitate rerum, Nuremberg, Johann Petreius, 1550 (on natural phenomena).
De libris propriis, Leiden, 1557 (commentaries).
Metoposcopia libris tredecim, et octingentis faciei humanae eiconibus complexa , 1558 (publ. post. 1658, Paris)
De varietate rerum, Basle, Heinrich Petri, 1559 (on natural phenomena).
Neronis encomium, Basle, 1562.
De Methodo medendi, 1565
Opus novum de proportionibus numerorum, motuum, ponderum, sonorum, aliarumque rerum mensurandarum. Item
de aliza regula, Basel, 1570.
De vita propria, 1576 (autobiography); a later edition,De Propria Vita Liber, Amsterdam, (1654)

The Book of My Life, New York Review Books Classics, translated by Stoner, Jean, introduction by Grafton,
Anthony, NYRB Classics, 2002, p. 320,ISBN 978-1-59017-016-8
Liber de ludo aleae, ("On Casting the Die"),[24] posthumously published in 1663 (on probability).
 The Book on Games of Chance: The 16th-Century rTeatise on Probability, Dover Recreational Math, translated
by Gould, Sydney Henry, foreword by Wilks, Samuel S., Dover Publications, 2015 [1961], p. 64,ISBN 978-0-486-
79793-9
De Musica, ca 1546 (on music theory), posthumously published inHieronymi Cardani Mediolensis opera omnia,
Sponius, Lyons, 1663
De Consolatione, Venice, 1542
HIERONY-||MI CARDANI ME=||DIOLANENSIS MEDICI,|| DE RERVM VARIETATE, LI-||BRI XVII. Iam denuò ab in
numeris || mendis summa cura ac studio repur -||gati, & pristino nito-||ri restituti.|| ADIECTVS EST CAPITVM, RE-
||rum & sententiarum … || INDEX utilissimus.||
, Basel, 1581 Digital edition by the University and State Library
Düsseldorf
Synesiorum somniorum omnis generis insomnia explicantes(Book of Dreams)

See also
Blow book - an early form of art or magic trick initially uncovered by Gerolamo Cardano
Negative numbers - the core of Cardano's major contributions to science and maths

References

Citations
1. O'Connor, J.J.; Robertson, E.F. (August 2006). "Étienne Pascal" (http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographi
es/Pascal_Etienne.html). University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved 5 February 2010.
2. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cardan, Girolamo". Encyclopædia Britannica(11th ed.). Cambridge University
Press.
3. Patty, Peter Fletcher, Hughes Hoyle, C. Wayne (1991). Foundations of Discrete Mathematics(International student
ed.). Boston: PWS-KENT Pub. Co. p. 207.ISBN 0-534-92373-9. "Cardano was a physician, astrologer, and
mathematician.... [He] supported his wife and three children by gambling and casting horoscopes.
"
4. Westfall, Richard S. "Cardano, Girolamo" (https://www.webcitation.org/69HDd2llY?url=http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/
NewFiles/cardano.html). The Galileo Project. rice.edu. Archived fromthe original (http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/New
Files/cardano.html) on 19 July 2012. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
5. Jerome Cardan: A Biographical Study(https://books.google.com/?id=GNpEPgAACAAJ)
. Dodo Press. January 2009.
ISBN 9781409959595.
6. Armando Maggi (1 September 2001).Satan's Rhetoric: A Study of Renaissance Demonology(https://books.google.c
om/books?id=dF-JHCT9bT0C&pg=PA184). University of Chicago Press. pp. 181–. ISBN 978-0-226-50132-1.
7. Angus., Konstam, (1996).Pavia 1525 : the climax of the Italian wars(https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36143257).
London: Osprey Military. ISBN 1855325047. OCLC 36143257 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36143257).
8. "Cardan biography" (http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html). MacTutor History of
Mathematics archive. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
9. http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html
10. Bruno, Leonard C (2003) [1999].Math and mathematicians : the history of math discoveries around the world
(http
s://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41497065). Baker, Lawrence W. Detroit, Mich.: U X L. p. 60.ISBN 0787638137.
OCLC 41497065 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41497065).
11. Isaac Asimov, Asimov on Numbers, published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, 1966, 1977, page
119.
12. Burton, David. The History of Mathematics: An Introduction(7th (2010) ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
13. Katz, Victor J. A History of Mathematics: An ntroduction.
I 3rd ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2009. Print.
14. In Chapter 20 of Liber de Ludo Aleae he describes a personal experience from 1526 and then adds that "thirty-eight
years have passed" [elapsis iam annis triginta octo]. This sentence is written by Cardano around 1564, age 63.
15. Katz, ibid., p. 488
16. Some laws and problems in classical probability and how Cardano anticipated them Gorrochum,. P
Chancemagazine 2012 (http://www.columbia.edu/~pg2113/index_files/Gorroochurn-Some%20Laws.pdf)
17. Katz, ibid., p. 488
18. "How does a Cardan gear mechanism work?"(http://www.mekanizmalar.com/cardan_gear.html). Seyhan Ersoy.
Retrieved 1 April 2015.
19. Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology (https://books.google.com/books?id=mmIOAAAAQAAJ&)
, 1832, p.29
20. "Girolamo Cardano" (http://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/periodictable/html/Cd.html)
. www2.stetson.edu. Retrieved
2017-10-10.
21. A Facsimile of the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Sir Thomas Browne and his son Edward's Libraries.
Introduction, notes and index by J.S. Finch (E.J. Brill: Leiden, 1986)
22. Pseudodoxia EpidemicaBk 1: chapter 8 no. 13
23. [1] (http://www.filosofia.unimi.it/cardano/testi/operaomnia/vol_4_s_4.pdf)An electronic copy of his bookArs Magna
(in Latin)
24. p. 963, Jan Gullberg, Mathematics from the birth of numbers, W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN 0-393-04002-X
ISBN 978-0-393-04002-9

Sources
Cardano, Girolamo, Astrological Aphorisms of Cardan. Edmonds, WA: Sure Fire Press, 1989.
Cardano, Girolamo, The Book of My Life. trans. by Jean Stoner. New York: New York Review of Books, 2002.
Cardano, Girolamo, Opera omnia, Charles Sponi, ed., 10 vols. Lyons, 1663.
Cardano, Girolamo, Nero: an Exemplary LifeInckstone 2012, translation in English of theNeronis Encomium.
Dunham, William, Journey through Genius, Chapter 6, 1990, John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-50030-5. Discusses
Cardano's life and solution of the cubic equation.
Ekert, Artur, "Complex and unpredictable Cardano".International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 47, Issue 8,
pp. 2101–2119. arXiv e-print (arXiv:0806.0485).
Giglioni, Guido, "'Bolognan boys are beautiful, tasteful and mostly fine musicians': Cardano on male same-sex love
and music", in: Kenneth Borris & George Rousseau (curr .), The sciences of homosexuality in early modern Europe
,
Routledge, London 2007, pp. 201–220.
Grafton, Anthony, Cardano's Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer
. Harvard University
Press, 2001.
Morley, Henry, The life of Girolamo Cardano, of Milan, Physician2 vols. Chapman & Hall, London 1854.
Ore, Øystein, Cardano, the Gambling Scholar. Princeton, 1953.
Rutkin, H. Darrel, "Astrological conditioning of same-sexual relations in Girolamo Cardano's theoretical treatises and
celebrity genitures", in: Kenneth Borris & George Rousseau (curr .), The sciences of homosexuality in early modern
Europe, Routledge, London 2007, pp. 183–200.
Sirasi, Nancy G., The Clock and the Mirror: Girolamo Cardano and Renaissance Medicine
, Princeton University
Press, 1997.

External links
A recreational article about Cardano and the discovery of the two basic ingredients of quantum theory, probability
and complex numbers.
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Gerolamo Cardano", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive,
University of St Andrews.
http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Categoria:T
esti_in_cui_%C3%A8_citato_Girolamo_Cardano
History of Science Collectionat Linda Hall Library
Jerome Cardan, a Biographical Study, 1898, by William George Waters, from Project Gutenberg
"Girolamo Cardan". Catholic Encyclopedia.
Girolamo Cardano, Strumenti per la storia del Rinascimento in Italia settentrionale (in Italian)
and English
Online Galleries, History of Science Collections,University of Oklahoma LibrariesHigh resolution images of works
by and/or portraits of Gerolamo Cardano in .jpg and .tif
f format.
Forster, E.M. 'Cardan' in Abinger Harvest (1936). Middlesex, UK:Penguin Books Ltd. pp. 208–221.
Forster, E.M. (1 January 1905)."Cardan". Independent Review. 5: 365–374. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
 "Cardano v Tartaglia: The Great Feud Out ofBounds" by Tony Rothman
De Subtilitate Libri XXI From the Rare Book and Special Collection Division at theLibrary of Congress

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