General methods We say It should be mentioned here that Diophantus never used general methods in his solutions Hermann Hankel renowned German mathematician made the following remark regarding Diophantus Our author Diophantos not the slightest trace of a general comprehensive method is discernible each problem calls for some special method which refuses to work even for the most closely related problems For this reason it is difficult for the modern scholar to solve the 101st problem even after having studied 100 of Diophantos s solutions and the ref at least I think its the ref I rescued it from a version ages back is Hankel H Geschichte der mathematic i m altertum und mittelalter Leipzig 1874 translated to English by Ulrich Lirecht in Chinese Mathematics in the thirteenth century Dover publications New York 1973 If no one has said this since 184 it is unlikely to be very true Etc