Bellavitis's equipollences calculus and his theory of complex numbers (Q2762232)

This article contains a study of Bellavitis's construction of a theory of complex numbers based on his calculus of equipollences, which was roughly equivalent to vector algebra in the plane, though based on the concept of directed line segments. Two directed line segments were regarded as equipollent if they had the same length and direction. By treating these line segments as ``real'' numbers, Bellavitis was able to show that all the roots of an algebraic equation are ``real''.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 0970.00008].