17 January 1570

It was a rainy and gloomy day. No eye contact was being made on the streets as everyone was either looking down or covered by an umbrella. It was 18 years later and I still had my daily routine of grabbing a news paper and heading to my favorite tea shop. I had reached the corner where I could usually hear the paper boy yelling todays headline story, but due to the ringing of the rain smashing the stop of my umbrella, or maybe it was due to the fact that I did not want to actually hear it, I was unable to hear what the boy was yelling. "Good day boy" as I handed him over a euro and waited for my change, but it wouldn't be good for long. I stuffed the folded paper under my armpit until I arrived at the tea shop and dried off. I sat down at my favorite table, plopped the paper in front of me to read the headline story for the day, "Cardano keeps falling: Imprisoned." I could not believe what I was reading. 18 years ago he was on top of the world, seemed as if he had turned his life around from the past failures in which I was told about. I was anxious to read. I did not know I wanted to keep a good memory of him and who he was and what he has contributed to this world, or if I wanted to see how he fell off the top of his mountain and ended up in jail. My curiosity ended up winning and I began to read. . . "Cardano, world renown mathematician and physician, established professor of medicine at the University of Pavia, and lifesaver of John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, imprisoned on a charge of heresy." For those of you that are unaware, heresy is the belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine. Anyway, back to the article, "Cardano casted a horoscope of Jesus Christ. It is unaware how long the sentence will take place but we do know that he is currently held in the Milan center jail without bond. This seams to be the bottom of the mountain that Cardano was falling down for the past 13 years. In 1557, Cardano's oldest son who was a respected doctor secretly married a girl in which he thought was "a worthless, shameless woman." It was said that even with the disobedience, Cardano continued to support his son and his wife financially, but not in any other way. This lack of support from Cardano caused a feud between the family of the wife and the Cardano family. The oldest son was tired of being mocked by his wife and the family of his wife and decided to poison her! He confessed to the murder of his wife and was placed in jail. News travels fast, especially within confinement, and as a result, Cardano's son had his left hand cut off and on the 13th of April 1560, he was executed in jail. This was the hit is believed to be the starting point of the downfall in which he was unable to get back up from. Cardano began to lose his reputation being the father of a murderer. He started to revery to being suck up, hot headed, and arrogant as he was in his younger days, this created a lot of enemies especially amongst his colleagues who were amongst some of the most hated. After his oldest sons death, Cardano had two remaining children. His only daughter died only a few years later from contracting syphilis while performing prostitution, her only way of making money to provide for herself. His remaining son had a gambling problem, even broke into his fathers house at times to steal money and valuables to try to make up for his deficit. In Cardano's autobiography he wrote about the "four greatest sadnesses in his life: the fist was my marriage; the second, the bitter death of my son; the third, imprisonment; the fourth, the base character of my youngest son." I dropped the paper from my hands and felt a cold rush all over my body. I felt as if I had just lost a friend. "Could I have done something different to change where he was today? Surely I could have, right?" I thought to myself. "I could have reached out to him, maybe all that he needed was a friend. Well, it is never to late to start." I proceeded to write a letter to Cardano that would eventually be delivered to him in jail. I told him about how he was an idol of mine and someone that I looked up to in multiple different aspects of life, one of those being mathematics. I studies his publications and wrote about how my son was learning the quadratic formula in high school and how it is related to his findings, even though his being much more complicated. I told him that I was praying for him. I prayed that he would receive grace and mercy while in jail. That he could use his time in there as a time of reflection. If he were to ever get out of jail, I told him where I lived and that he was always welcome and that even though we only met twice in our lives, very briefly I might add, that I always had a bed made for him.

Sources:
- O'Connor, J J, and E F Robertson. “Girolamo Cardano.” Cardan Biography, School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland, June 1998, www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html.
- Boyd, Andy, and John H. Lienhard. “Engines Of Our Ingenuity.” No. 1950: Girolamo Cardano, University of Houston, 1988, uh.edu/engines/epi1950.htm.
- J Cardano, Autobiography (New York, 1930) 

20 September 1552

"EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT..." It was just like any other normal weekday. Work had ended and I was making my way to the news stand before arriving at my favorite tea shop. "GEROLAMO CARDANO DOES THE UNTHINKABLE, SAVES THE LIFE OF JOHN HAMILTON, ARCHBISHOP OF ST. ANDREWS!" My ears matched my posture as I perked up because I thought that he said the name of an old friend. "Hey again boy," I gave him a euro and took a paper and did not even wait for my change because what I thought was true, the headline article was about the same man that I met at the casino and ran into at the bar 13 years ago and had not heard from or seen since. I did not even order my tea, I walked in, sat down as the first open table, and began to read. "For the past ten years, John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, had been suffering from asthma, but as of recently, the amount of attacks as well as the toll being taken on his body had increased. Hamilton brought in the court physicians from the French King as well as the German emperor in the previous two years, but they failed in their diagnosis and treatment. Near death and out of disparity, the Archbishop contacted a Gerolamo Cardano, resident of Milan and rector of the College of Physicians and known as "the greatest physician in the world!" Cardano was not known to leave Italy as he focused most of his attention on his lectures on medicine at the Universities of Milan and Pavia in the years of 1543 till 1552. Hamilton seemed to catch him at just the right time, though, as he was in-between semesters and had no preparation for lectures that needed to be done (not to mention the fact that he was offered a large sum of money). Cardano arrived in Edinburgh on the 29th of June and began his work on his patient immediately. During his time there, Cardano diagnosed Hamilton with a disease called feather pillows and named that the cause of his asthma. Even though Cardano was given two thousand gold crowns, he turned down an offer for a permanent place at the Scottish court and returned to his home 1 week ago. His arrival home was indication that the Archbishop was recovering, in a stable state, and on his was to being healthy once again, something that seemed impossible to most. As if Cardano wasn't already on top of the world, right? In 1545, this gentleman published what is known to be the greatest mathematical works of its time, Ars Magna. This publication included the methods of solving the cubic and quartic equations, including the mystery of solving the formula when taking the square root of a negative number was involved. As he writes in his publication "Dismissing mental tortures, and multiplying (5 + √ - 15) by (5 - √-15), we obtain 25 - (-15). Therefore the product is 40. .... and thus far does arithmetical subtlety go, of which this, the extreme, is, as I have said, so subtle that it is useless." So not only does the resume of Cardano have the titles of world renowned mathematician and physician and established professor of medicine at the University of Pavia, but now has lifesaver of the Archbishop. The only dilemma for Cardano now is in which order those will be listed." I was speechless.

Sources:
- O'Connor, J J, and E F Robertson. “Girolamo Cardano.” Cardan Biography, School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland, June 1998, www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html.
- Boyd, Andy, and John H. Lienhard. “Engines Of Our Ingenuity.” No. 1950: Girolamo Cardano, University of Houston, 1988, uh.edu/engines/epi1950.htm.
- C Romo Santos, Cardano's 'Ars magna' and the solutions of cubic and quartic equations, Rev. Acad. Canaria Cienc. 7 (1) (1995), 187-201.

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5 August 1539

The Friends Pub in Milan, Italy was the location. It had been about 6 months since I had to pack up from our 5 year home in Pavia and move the family out to Milan. I wouldn't have said that it was our first choice, but I always try to keep a good character about switching things up a bit and gaining new wisdom threw new experiences and new friends. That's exactly what I was doing on this day. After the first week starting my new job, my coworkers invited me to their Friday afternoon weekend initiation pub crawl. This was the first stop on the list. The food was okay, the company was good, and the beer was better. I was starting to get the feeling that I was going to like this new town. After a couple rounds and getting some food in our stomaches, it was time to walk to the next pub. As we all walked out the door, a tall man had a simple grin on his face entering in the opposite direction. The man looked awfully familiar, but the grin did not. You know that feeling where you wanted to say something to someone and it is right on the tip of your tongue but you can't remember what it was? That is how I felt, I knew that I knew this guy, he was to familiar for me not to recognize him. I had only been here for a week though, so I am not sure if I maybe just had one too many pints at the first stop. After taking a few steps in the direction of my friends, I thought to myself, "Why did you move here? Did you not want to take risks? Experience new things? Gain new wisdom?" So, as a result, I yelled to my coworkers, who were all ahead of me at this point, that I had to use the restroom and that I was going to catch up with them at the next pub. What I was really doing though, was going back to have a conversation with this man to see where I might have known him from. Upon walking back in, I saw the distinct man sitting alone at the bar. The perfect opportunity. I went and sat two seats down from him and ordered another pint, hoping that he would look my way and recognize me also and say something. Five minutes passed by with no words said when finally I turned to him and said, "excuse me sir, you look awfully familiar. Would we have happened to cross paths in the past?" "I don't know, " he said, "I have met a lot of people in my life before and they all come and go as quick as a bankroll on the roulette table." I laughed because I could relate. Then, after about a seven second pause, it hit me. That is where I knew this man from! The casino in Pavia! I then leaned over to him and said, "15 years ago in the Pavia casino, I believe we met at on the blackjack table, do you remember me?" "I try to forget everything about that casino as much as possible, but as a matter of fact, I do remember you!" he exclaimed, "boy, have some things changed in the last 15 years." I remembered that he was having some family issues at the time and was hesitant to talk about them. Fairly reluctantly, I continued on to ask him how his family and life had been and what had brought him to Milan. "Same reason anyone else would come to this small town" he responded. "I had to do the unexpected, make decisions that were not ideal, but had to be done. The year after we met, I had received my doctorate in medicine and applied to College of Physicians in Milan because at the time, my mother had still lived here. A couple months later, I had received a message that my application had been denied. They said that it was because of my illegitimate birth certificate, but I heard rumors and knew that they were true. It was actually because of my reputation as a difficult, unconventional, uncompromising, and aggressive nature. As a result, I moved to Sacco and started my own private practice. Long story short, I could not provide for my wife and myself due to the lack of business. I could've made more money on a bad day at the poker table than I could have in Sacco. Thus in April of 1532, we reverted again to changing locations and trying a new way of life. Again, I would've hoped that way included me being able to practice medicine at the College of Physicians, but my application was again denied. I did not have enough money to start my own practice again, thus I reverted to gambling." "Oh, so now you are back on your feet and are doing well!" I interjected. "Well, yes and no. I am back on my feet, but not because of the gambling. The gambling was so bad that it got to a point where I had to pawn my wife's ring, move to Milan, and enter a poorhouse." "Oh my gosh," I exclaimed, "I am so sorry to hear that, when I met you in Pavia, you were doing so well, I had no idea that it was that much of a prob.." "IT IS not a problem!" he interrupted. "It was, but I am over it now, I am on to bigger and better things." (He still had a little bit of a temper problem as I remember him from before). "I am sorry, I was not trying to offend you in any way." "It's okay" he said, "I know that I get worked up about my failures." "What do you mean failureS (plural)?" I asked. "Well, despite my recent success with my patients and the support from them and their loved ones, my application was again denied in 1537. My three older siblings died from the plague like the rest of the town when I was little. Also once I was in university, my father died thinking that I was a brilliant student but was un-liked and criticized. Also I found out he was friends with Leonardo da Vinci!? I could have learned so much from the both of them if I wasn't so arrogant all the time! BUT, but my old friend, the tides seem to be turning in my favor! Two years later after my second rejection, the college overturned their legitimate birthing clause and admitted me! This same year I have managed to publish my booked called The Practice of Arithmetic and Simple Mensuration. I feel as if this year has really sparked my interest and allowed me to get my feet underneath myself. I have been working with a man named Tartaglia who works a lot with solving cubics. This field of mathematics has really peaked my interests. I am sure you have no idea what I am talking about when I say I am trying to solve cubic and quartic equations by radicals, do you?" "Actually I am currently studying mathematics at the University of Oxford, so as a matter of fact I do." "Oh really? Well then... " "CHAD!! Come on lets go!! I thought you said you were going to the bathroom!!!" My coworkers interrupted the conversation. "Cant you just wait one second? I am having a conversation!" "No, come on! You are going to get left behind," as they continued to pull me out of the pub. "It was nice to see you again, Girolamo! I hope to see you again soon. Good lucks with all of your cubics!"

Sources:
- O'Connor, J J, and E F Robertson. “Girolamo Cardano.” Cardan Biography, School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland, June 1998, www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html.
- Boyd, Andy, and John H. Lienhard. “Engines Of Our Ingenuity.” No. 1950: Girolamo Cardano, University of Houston, 1988, uh.edu/engines/epi1950.htm.

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