No less dramatic was a 16th-century conflict between Italian mathematicians Gerolamo Cardano, a brilliant but troubled polymath, and Niccolò Fontana, better known as Tartaglia (meaning “the stammerer, ...

In 1539, Tartaglia divulged the formula, after Cardano swore a solemn oath never to reveal it. Cardano made rapid progress in solving the remaining species of cubic equations.