Nicolas Chuquet

Who was Nicolas Chuquet?

Nicolas Chuquet was a French mathematician. He invented his own notation for algebraic concepts and exponentiation. He may have been the first mathematician to recognize zero and negative numbers as exponents .

In 1475, Jehan Adam recorded the words "bymillion" and "trimillion" and it is believed that these words or similar ones were in general use at that time.

In 1484, Chuquet wrote an article Triparty en la science des nombres, which was unpublished in his lifetime. Most of it, however, was copied without attribution by Estienne de La Roche in his 1520 textbook, l'Arismetique. In the 1870s, scholar Aristide Marre discovered Chuquet's manuscript and published it in 1880. The manuscript contained notes in de la Roche's handwriting. His article shows a huge number divided into groups of six digits, and in a short passage he states that the groups can be called:

"million, the second mark byllion, the third mark tryllion, the fourth quadrillion, the fifth quyillion, the sixth sixlion, the seventh septyllion, the eighth ottyllion, the ninth nonyllion and so on with others as far as you wish to go.