Editing Quartic function (section)

==History==
[[Lodovico Ferrari]] is credited with the discovery of the solution to the quartic in 1540, but since this solution, like all algebraic solutions of the quartic, requires the solution of a [[cubic equation|cubic]] to be found, it could not be published immediately.<ref>{{MacTutor|id=Ferrari|title=Lodovico Ferrari}}</ref> The solution of the quartic was published together with that of the cubic by Ferrari's mentor [[Gerolamo Cardano]] in the book ''[[Ars Magna (Gerolamo Cardano)|Ars Magna]]''.<ref>{{Citation | last = Cardano | first = Gerolamo | author-link = Gerolamo Cardano | year = 1993 | orig-year = 1545 | title = Ars magna or The Rules of Algebra | publisher = Dover | isbn = 0-486-67811-3 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/arsmagnaorruleso0000card }}</ref>

The proof that four is the highest degree of a general polynomial for which such solutions can be found was first given in the [[Abel–Ruffini theorem]] in 1824, proving that all attempts at solving the higher order polynomials would be futile. The notes left by [[Évariste Galois]] prior to dying in a duel in 1832 later led to an elegant [[Galois theory|complete theory]] of the roots of polynomials, of which this theorem was one result.<ref>Stewart, Ian, ''Galois Theory, Third Edition'' (Chapman & Hall/CRC Mathematics, 2004)</ref>