First Course in the Theory of Equations

Abstract

THE introduction to the Theory of Equations contained in this volume is wide enough to cover the needs of all except those who aspire to become mathematical specialists. The methods throughout are strictly elementary, the treatment reaching the algebraic solution of cubic and biquadratic equations without any reference to substitutions or group-theory. Useful chapters on determinants and elimination are included, while another one deals with elementary properties of symmetric functions. The book contains a severe course of computation within the scope of its subject-matter, and a considerable proportion of the abundant examples are numerical in character. Two subjects avoided by most writers of elementary text-books are discussed in a satisfactory and convincing way: (i) the impossibility of trisecting an angle, and (2) the construction of a regular polygon of seventeen sides, by the methods of Euclidean geometry. Prof. Dickson's book possesses - all the merits of an excellent text-book, and it is to be hoped that its circulation will be a wide one.