Talk:Gerolamo Cardano

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What is the source for the information regarding Cardano's daughter?

A comment: I feel that the remarks regarding the wife of Cardano's son are not in place, since they give legitimacy to her murder.

This is excellent. I've long had a file with this info online. I suggest only a disversion from "Girolamo", which is the spelling of other citations by Google.jonhays 01:17, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree. This article rocks. It seems to leave out some important stuff from Cardan's mathematical career, though. p

Asimov says that there is a persistent story that Cardano astrologically predicted the date of his own death, and when the day came and found him in good health, he committed suicide, but adds that this sounds too dramatic to be true. Any comments? PatGallacher 15:33, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)

Concerning his suicide, he did torture and starve himself throughout his life, so a mode of self-destruction along those lines wouldn't be too far fetched. Incidentally, I researched Cardano for over a year in college in preparation to write a play that I never finished, so doing a major overhaul of this article might be a good way for me to get around to completing it. Jason Donaldson 23:00, 2005 August 9 (UTC)

Girolamo, not Gerolamo

While Gerolamo is the modern spelling, Girolamo appears to be the more popular, and original spelling. Even Britannica spells it this way. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-03-15 20:21

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Moved from the article

Gerolamo Cardano.

This painting was inserted in the article, but is unsourced. Besides it looks like a modern painting. Its source should be referred to leave it in the article main page.--Juansempere (talk) 14:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Surely Cardano did more than acknowledge the existence of imaginary numbers if he was able to find and accept complex numbers as solutions to an equation? He may not have been happy about it but he did work with them.

If he foretold his death to occur in 1546, a prediction obviously proved false and that did not unduly upset his output, why would he be so keen to commit suicide to uphold any subsequent prediction?

Did he not write Liber de Ludo Aleae in his youth, not in his 60s, shortly after he had used its methods to fund his medical studies?

Can we trust any Roman Catholic source? His own son handed him up to the Inquisition and Tartaglia diminished this polymath's reputation much as Newton did later to an equally ingenious Hooke. Chrysippo (talk) 09:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

More on Cardano's misfortune in his children

Roger Penrose, in his book "The Road to Reality", states that in addition to the son who had his ears cropped, the son who was executed, and the son who betrayed his father, another one of Cardano's children was a prostitute who died of a social disease. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.111.38.212 (talk) 17:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Additional Information on Cardan’s Life

Before Cardan entered the University of Pavia in 1520, he was working as an assistant under his father, from whom he also learned mathematics. Cardan then proceeded to argue with his father concerning as academic path for Cardan. Cardan won the argument and began studying medicine, once again against his father’s wishes for him to study law. (http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html)

As far as him not being admitted into the College of Physicians in Milan based on his illegitimate birth, the college changed its illegitimacy laws in 1537, and thereby admitted Cardan, but I do not know if he ever took advantage of this acceptance. (http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html)

Of his many works published, just as many if not more, were reportedly burned by him for not reaching his perfection standards. At the time of his death, 131 of his works had been published, 111 were in manuscript form, and a total of about 170 others that were burnt by Cardan. (M. Burton, The History of Mathematics (New York: McGraw Hill, 2011)) (http://www.nndb.com/people/528/000107207/)

April 19, 2011 Ward.E (talk) 05:36, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment MTH314: That was positivly fasinating that Cardan was such a perfectionist that he burnt his own works because they did not match his llevel of satisfaction. The question that I have is after he burnt his works did he aspire to remake them, or did he abandon them? There is quite the large number of works that M. Burton reports Cardan created and burnt, and it would not suprise me that many of his burnt works were just previous drafts for his other completed ones. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.121.153.100 (talk) 05:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to say that he probably did all of the above, burning old drafts as well as abandoning works, or at least approaches he had tried and failed with. A large number of unpublished works did survive past his death, and though they probably weren't up to his perfectionist standards, they did allow for immense breakthroughs, especially in probability. 

Ward.E (talk) 16:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that it's interesting that he discarded what he saw as unacceptable. If I had to guess I would say that some of the documents he burned would have been beneficial to society. As the old saying goes "one man's trash is another man's treasure". Even if these works that he burned weren't up to his standards, I'm sure some of his ideas would have been revolutionary and progressive, especially in the 1500's before major advances in mathematics took place. 199.245.238.2 (talk) 17:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC)Jake O'Donnell, Saint Martin's University