The
Italian mathematician, Niccolo Fontana, was born in Bresica and not much is
known about him.
What is known is that his father was a postman and his family was very poor. It
is said that his mother accumulated a small amount of money so that Niccolo
might be tutored. The money ran out when the instructions reached the letter K
and his education stopped before he could write his own initials. It is also
said that he used tombstones in place of writing slates.
When
the French sacked Brescia in 1512, his mother sought refuge for her and young
Niccolo in the church, but the soldiers also invaded the church, and the 12
year old boy was severely wounded by a sword cut: his jawbone was split, causing
permanent damage. Thereafter, he was called "Tartaglia" - Italian for
"stammer" and later wore a long beard to hide the scars.
In
1516 he moved to Verona and became a teacher. After that he went on to Venice,
where he remained for the rest of his life. Tartaglia never made much money
from his skills but he regarded his knowledge as his personal property. This
attitude worsened the conflict he had with Cardano about Cardano making public
Tartaglias formula for solving the cubic equation.
Tartaglia explored the complexities of third degree equations. After finding
the solution of the cubic equation he turned his attention to calculation of
the volume of the tetrahedron from the length of its sides.
Although
he spent much time teaching mathematics, Tartaglia was responsible for
translating
Euclid´s Elements into Italian (1543). His greatest love, however, was
to use his skill to solve military problems. He formulated what is now
generally known as Tartaglia´s theorem: the trajectory of a projectile is a
curved line everywhere, and the maximum range at any speed of it´s projection
is obtained with a firing elevation of 45o.