On the Argument of Abel

By William R. Hamilton

On the Argument of Abel

The paper

On the Argument of Abel, respecting the Impossibility of expressing a Root of any General Equation above the Fourth Degree, by any finite Combination of Radicals and Rational Functions.
was published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, volume 18 (1839), pp. 171-259.

This paper is available in the following formats:

An abstract of this paper was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.

In this paper, Hamilton gave an exposition of the method of Abel for proving the impossibility of solving the general quintic equation by radicals (giving his own arguments to cover those parts of Abel's proof which he considered problematic or obscure). Hamilton also used Abel's theory to show that there are no `irreducible' solutions of the general quadratic, cubic and biquadratic equations essentially different from the standard solutions of those equations.

Investigations respecting Equations of the Fifth Degree

An abstract of Hamilton's paper On the Argument of Abel, entitled Investigations respecting Equations of the Fifth Degree was communicated on May 22nd, 1837 and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, volume 1 (1841), pp. 76-80.

This abstract is available in the following formats:


Links:

D.R. Wilkins
(dwilkins@maths.tcd.ie)
School of Mathematics
Trinity College, Dublin