This chapter is devoted to various aspects of the history of the Pell equation before the work of Lagrange. As this topic has already been dealt with in some detail by Konen,1 Whitford,2, and Dickson,3 our discussion here will be brief. We will concentrate on providing a more modern historical perspective and a somewhat different presentation of this material than that given in these earlier works.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jacobson, M.J., Williams, H.C. (2009). Early History of the Pell Equation. In: Solving the Pell Equation. CMS Books in Mathematics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-84923-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-84923-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-84922-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-84923-2
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)