• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.39-54
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• 2021

One of the topics in school mathematics is the relation between the roots and the coefficients of equations. It deals with the way to find the roots out of the coefficients of equations. One of the concepts derived from the theory of equations is symmetric functions. Symmetry is a kind of functionality of human cognition. It is, in mathematics, geometrically related to the congruence and the similarity of figures, and algebraically a kind of invariants. We look at stories on the appearance of symmetric functions through the development of the theory of equations.