Voting Station

Diophantus

Please vote to return to collections.

Mathematician

The Resume

    (circa 200-circa 284)
    Born in Alexandria, Egypt
    Greek mathematician
    Called the 'Father of Algebra'
    Wrote Arithmetica, an early math textbook
    Contributed to mathematical notation and number theory

Why he might be annoying:

    He was forgotten during the Middle Ages and wasn't translated into Latin until 1570.
    Some dispute his title of 'The Father of Algebra,' usually for pro-Arabic political reasons.
    He is hard to study unless one knows Greek and because he used only specific, never general, solutions.
    He was limited due to a lack of adequate mathematical notation for some of his work.
    One Byzantine scholar once wrote, 'Thy soul, Diophantus, be with Satan because of the difficulty of your theorems.'
    If you hated and struggled with algebra in high school, blame him.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He is the one who first proposed what became known as Fermat's Last Theorem, not Pierre Fermat.
    He was well known and studied by the Arab speaking peoples.
    Diophantine equations and approximations are named after him.
    He had to do all his work by hand. No computers or calculators were around then.
    Geeks need heroes too!

Credit: tom_jeffords


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 7 Votes: 42.86% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 24 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 10 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 24 Votes: 58.33% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 17 Votes: 47.06% Annoying