Solving Cubic and Quartic Equations

RenĂ© Thiemann đŸ“§

September 3, 2021

Abstract

We formalize Cardano's formula to solve a cubic equation $$ax^3 + bx^2 + cx + d = 0,$$ as well as Ferrari's formula to solve a quartic equation. We further turn both formulas into executable algorithms based on the algebraic number implementation in the AFP. To this end we also slightly extended this library, namely by making the minimal polynomial of an algebraic number executable, and by defining and implementing $n$-th roots of complex numbers.

License

BSD License

Topics

Session Cubic_Quartic_Equations