Francois Viete

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…The volume was not included in the collected books. His most significant contributions were in algebra. The letters had been used to describe the unknown quantity by early writers. He was first to use letters for parameters or constant coefficients in an equation (Hartshorne 4). Francois Viete died in Paris on February 23, 1603 (Hartshorne 4). Francois Viete is one interesting person. Without him in the world a lot of things would not be the way they are today.