The Abel-Ruffini theorem says that general polynomial equations of degree 5 or higher do not have an algebraic solution when using arbitrary coefficients.
Ruffini's 1799 proof is known to contain some errors, and met little interest at the time. The first complete proof was delivered by Niels Abel 25 years later; it only took him 6 pages.
4 replies
Explanation From Original OP:
The secret is using a really really really tiny font
Mr. Ruffini, being Italian, had to take up significant page space drawing his accompanying hand gestures with each sentence.
hey that's offensive!
you can't drop bombs like that without warning
ps. I'm italian, I'm offended, and that's true.