The field of mathematics is now so extensive that no one can [any] longer pretend to cover it, least of all the specialist in any one department. Fur… - David Eugene Smith

Grégoire de Saint-Vincent... was a Jesuit, taught mathematics in Rome and Prag (1629-1631), and was afterwards called to Spain by Phillip IV as tutor to his son... He wrote two works on geometry [Principia Matheseos Univerales (1651); Exercitationum Mathematicarum Libri quinque (1657)], giving in one of them the quadrature of the hyperbola referred to its asymptotes, and showing that as the area increased in arithmetic series the abscissas increased in geometric series.

His writings include works on mechanics, sound, astronomy, the tides, the laws of motion, the Torricellian tube, botany, physiology, music, the calendar (in opposition to the Gregorian reform), geology, and the compass,—a range too wide to allow of the greatest success in any of the lines of his activity. He was also an ingenious cryptologist and assisted the government in deciphering diplomatic messages.

He states that the root of <math>x^3 + 6x = 20</math> is<math>x = \sqrt {\sqrt{108} + 10} - \sqrt {\sqrt{108} - 10}.</math>