Quintic equation
A quintic equation is a polynomial equation in which the greatest exponent on the independent variable is five. For example,
Finding the zeroes of a polynomial—values of x which satisfy such an equation—given its coefficients was long a prominent mathematical problem. The
linear
and
quadratic
cases fell fairly quickly; after awhile
cubic
and
quartic
succumbed. But if there was some pattern to the formulæ none could see it, and the quintic was proving to be extremely stubborn.
Eventually
Paolo Ruffini
and
Niels Abel
were able to
prove
that there is no quintic formula. This is somewhat surprising; even though
the zeroes exist,
there is no single finite
expression
of +, -, ×, ÷, and
radicals
that can produce them from the coefficients for all quintics. (One can resort to infinite expressions;
Newton's method
provides one. See also
‘limit of a sequence’.)
But their proof did not generalise to higher degrees. The honour of proving the quartic formula to be the last of its kind, ie there was no sextic, septic, octic, formula, and so on, fell to Evariste Galois, who had an ingenious
insight which reduced the issue to an important but solved question of group theory.
Referenced By
List of equations | List of mathematical topics (P-R) | List of polynomial topics
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