• Communications of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.723-733
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• 2013

A Bachet equation $Y^2=X^3+k$ will have a rational solution if and only if there is $b{\in}\mathbb{Q}$ for which $X^3-b^2X^2+k$ is reducible. In this paper we show that such cubics arise as a cubic resolvent of a biquadratic polynomial. And we prove various properties of cubic resolvents.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2003

The Pythagorean equation $x^2{＋}y^2{=}z^2$ and Pythagorean triple had appeared in the Babylonian clay tablet made between 1900 and 1600 B. C. Another quadratic equation called Pell equation was implicit in an Archimedes' letter to Eratosthenes, so called ‘cattle problem’. Though elliptic equation were contained in Diophantos’ Arithmetica, a substantial progress for the solution of cubic equations was made by Bachet only in 1621 when he found infinitely many rational solutions of the equation $y^2{=}x^3{-}2$. The equation $y^2{=}x^3{+}c$ is the simplest of all elliptic equations, even of all Diophantine equations degree greater than 2. It is due to Bachet, Dirichlet, Lebesque and Mordell that the equation in better understood.