Rafael Bombelli

By AJ Casias
Background
 Sometime early in the sixteenth century, the Mazzioli family
changed its surname to Bombelli, perhaps due to political
difficulties surrounding the family's support of a failed coup.
 The young Rafael always went by the Bombelli name.
 Rafael was born January 1526 in Bologna, Italy
 He was the eldest Son
Education
  Rafael received no university education.
He was taught by an engineer- architect
Pier Francesco Clementi so it is perhaps
not too surprising that Bombelli himself
should turn to that occupation.
 Bombelli found himself a patron in
Alessandro Rufini who was a Roman noble,
later to become the Bishop of Melfi.
Learning Experience
 It is unclear exactly how Bombelli learnt of the leading
mathematical works of the day, but of course he lived in
the right part of Italy to be involved in the major events
surrounding the solution of cubic and quartic equations.
 Bombelli worked with his teacher, Pier Francesco
Clementi, on the Val di Chiana project
 And while Bombelli was waiting for the Val di Chiana
project to recommence, he decided to write an algebra
book.
The Common Algebra Book
I began by reviewing the majority of those authors who have written
on [algebra] up to the present, in order to be able to serve instead
of them on the matter, since there are a great many of them.

 Despite never completing the task, Bombelli began to revise his

algebra text in the light of what he had discovered in Diophantus. In
particular, 143 of the 272 problems which Bombelli gives in Book III
are taken from Diophantus. Bombelli does not identify which
problems are his own and which are due to Diophantus, but he
does give full credit to Diophantus acknowledging that he has
borrowed many of the problems given in his text from
the Arithmetica.
Bombelli's Algebra Phase #1
Plus times plus makes plus
Minus times minus makes plus
Plus times minus makes minus
Minus times plus makes minus
Plus 8 times plus 8 makes plus 64
Minus 5 times minus 6 makes plus 30
Minus 4 times plus 5 makes minus 20
Plus 5 times minus 4 makes minus 20
Bombelli's Algebra Phase #2
 Bombelli was the 1st Mathematician to show real respect for
“imaginary numbers”

 He Showed…

Plus of minus times plus of minus makes minus ["√-n . +√-n = -n]

Plus of minus times minus of minus makes plus ["√-n . -√-n = +n]

Minus of minus times plus of minus makes plus [-√-n . +√-n = +n]

Minus of minus times minus of minus makes minus [-√-n . -√-n = -n]

Bombelli's Algebra Phase #3
Famous Accomplishments
 What Bombelli is best known for is his justification
of conjugate imaginary roots for the "irreducible case"
of cubic equations. 

 Bombelli knew that this type of cubic equation has three real
roots and used the results of the Cardano-Tartaglia formula to
demonstrate that real numbers can be the result of
operations on complex numbers.
Cardano-Tartaglia formula
Cardan noticed something strange when he applied his
formula to certain cubics. When solving x3 = 15x + 4 he
obtained an expression involving  rad(-121). Cardan knew
that you could not take the square root of a negative number
yet he also knew that x = 4 was a solution to the equation. He
wrote to Tartaglia on 4 August 1539 in an attempt to clear up
the difficulty. Tartaglia certainly did not understand. In Ars
Magna Cardan gives a calculation with 'complex numbers' to
solve a similar problem but he really did not understand his
own calculation which he says is as subtle as it is useless.
Importance
Bombelli's Algebra is one of the most
remarkable achievements of 16th century
mathematics, and he must be credited with
understanding the importance of complex
numbers at a time when clearly nobody
else did.
Hard Knock Life
 He was put down for his lack of a college
degree
 He wasn’t completely supported until after
her had supported their thesis
Died
 Unfortunately Bombelli was never able to
complete these last two volumes of his
algebra book for he died shortly after the
publication of the first three volumes, in
1572.