Competitions
In 1515 Scipio del Ferro solved x3+ax = b, and taught the solution to his student Antonio Fior. In the meantime, Tartaglia, a brilliant mathematician, solved X3+px2 = q. He also rediscovered Fior's solution. Not believing that Tartaglia could solve this cubic, Fior challenged him to a public contest which was held in February, 1535. In this contest, each side would provide thirty problems for the other side to solve. The winner would be the person who could solve the greatest number of equations in the duration of fifty days. Afraid that he might lose the contest, Tartaglia worked very hard and successfully found a general rule for solving some specific kinds of cubics several days before the contest. Consequently Tartaglia won the contest. In this contest, Tartaglia solved all of Fior's equations in two hours while Fior failed to solve any of Tartaglia's.While Firo was only able to solve a particular cubic, such as X3+ax = b, Tartaglia had discovered solutions to many kinds of cubics