For centuries, one of algebra’s oldest puzzles has remained unsolved—how to find exact answers for higher-degree polynomials, where the variable is raised to the fifth power or more. Mathematicians ...

Move up another step, to the quartic equations – those that can involve an x term – and things start getting kind of ridiculous. There is, as with quadratics, a handy-dandy formula you can use to find ...

That same idea led to the modern quadratic formula. In the 1500s, European mathematicians extended these ideas to cubic and quartic equations using formulas involving cube roots and other radicals.