Part 1 of Essay
is not regarded as having a direct role in fluid mechanics but is included because he is my son's favorite mathematician. was the first to represent mathematical quantities by letters and introduced the plus (+) and minus (-) symbols. He derived a formula for p in the form of an infinite product. His substitution met ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... with Spain (1590), Viète served Henry IV of France and deciphered the Spanish code in intercepted messages. Viète introduced the first systematic algebraic notation in his book In artem analyticam isagoge (1591). He demonstrated the value of symbols by using plus + and minus - signs for operations, and letters to represent unknowns. He suggested using letters as symbols for quantities, both known and unknown. He used vowels for the unknowns and consonants for known quantities. The convention where letters near t ....