• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.143-155
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• 2011

The discriminant is one of the important concepts in school mathematics according to second degree polynomials. In this paper we survey the history of development to discriminant of any higher degree polynomials and investigate how the discriminant works for determining the graph of polynomials.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.351-362
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• 2012

Until the 1950s, linear algebra was considered only as one of abstract and advanced mathematics subject among in graduate mathematics courses, mainly dealing with module in algebra. Since the 1960s, it has been a main subject in undergraduate mathematics education because matrices has been used all over. In Korea, it was considered as a course only for mathematics major students until 1980s. However, now it is a subject for all undergraduate students including natural science, engineering, social science since 1990s. In this paper, we investigate the early history of linear algebra and its development from a historical perspective and mathematicians who made contributions. Secondly, we explain why linear algebra became so popular in college mathematics education in the late 20th century. Contributions of Chinese and H. Grassmann will be extensively examined with many newly discovered facts.