Johannes Widmann

Johannes Widmann, born around 1460 in Eger in Bohemia, was a German mathematician who died in Leipzig after 1498. He studied at the University of Leipzig, earning a bachelor's degree in 1482 and his Magister in 1485. His book on commercial arithmetic, Behende und hübsche Rechenung auff allen Kauffmanschafft, printed in Leipzig in 1489, is where the plus and minus signs first appear in print, used for surpluses and deficits in business problems. Around 1495 he published several Latin writings on calculation, and surviving records show that he lectured on algebra, apparently the first known university lecture on that topic. Adam Ries later took examples from Widmann's algebra lecture script.