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Diophantus of Alexandria used a syncopated algebra in his great work Arithmetica.

Researchers have been using tools from geometry to tackle the problems, which are named after Diophantus, a third-century Greek mathematician.

Diophantus did not, however, have access to computers and so could not take the idea very far.

The saddest bit of marginalia ever written was scribbled, in 1637, by Pierre de Fermat, in his copy of Diophantus’ ”Arithmetica,” next to an elementary problem of number theory.

"It does not lower the price of bread," as Malherbe remarked in speaking of the commentary of Bachet on the great work of Diophantus.