Arithmetic

Arithmetica's cover. 1621 edition.

The Arithmetica is a treatise of 13 books of which only the first six are known, which were written by the Greek mathematician Diophantus of Alexandria around the year 250.

Found in Venice by the German mathematician Johann Müller Regiomontano around 1464, the first translation into Latin was not made until 1575, being the work of Guilielmus Xylander.

The Arithmetica is not properly an algebra text but a collection of problems, its structure being the following:

• Book I, which consists of 25 problems of first-degree equations and 14 of second-degree equations.
• Book II, consisting of 35 problems. On the margin of page 85 of an edition of the work of 1621, where the problem was enunciated n.o 8 the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat would without demonstration expose his famous theorem.
• Book III, which consists of 21 problems. The most famous is 19 in which for the first time he comes to geometry to solve it
• Book IV, which consists of 40 problems mostly on cubes.
• Book V, which consists of 30 problems mostly on equations of second and third grade.
• Book VI, which consists of 24 problems on rectangles triangles.

In honor of Diophantus, equations with integer coefficients whose solutions are also integers are called Diophantine (or Diophantine) equations.