A recent post by @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears, published as a thong-in-check post, made me remember that back when there was no math notation, poetry was the OG way to express equations!
The most famous poem corresponds to the discovery of imaginary numbers by the mathematician Nicolo Tartaglia, who in 1539 sent his general solution for cubic equations to his fellow Cardano:
Which translates to:
- Quando chel cubo con le cose apressò (When the cube with the cosa beside it) -> x3+3x
- Se agualia à qualche numero difereto (Equals some other whole number) -> x3+3x=10
- Trouan dui altri differenti in esso (Find two other, of which it is the difference) -> u−v=10
- Cb'el lor produtto sempre sia eguale / Al terzo cubo delle cose neto (To put their product equal / To a third of the cosa, all cubed) -> u⋅v=(3/3)3=13=1
- El residuo poi suo generale / Delli lor lati cubi ben sottratti / varra la tua cosa principale (Then the difference / Of their cube roots, properly subtracted / Will be the value of your first unknown) -> x=3√u−3√v
There are many more examples I can share in future posts, each with their own surrounding story, of which Tartaglia's poem lacks no thrill (please see How Imaginary Numbers Were Invented).