Vincenzo Mollame (Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 4 July 1848 – Catania, 23 June 1912) was an Italian mathematician.
Mollame was privately tutored by Achille Sanni and then studied Mathematics at the University of Naples Federico II. After obtaining his degree, he became a high-school teacher, first at Benevento and after that at Naples, starting in 1878. He became a professor at the University of Catania in 1880 and remained there for the rest of his career, having retired in 1911, a few months before his death.[1]
His research area was the theory of equations and he proved in 1890 that when a cubic polynomial with rational coefficients has three real roots but it is irreducible in Q[x] (the so-called casus irreducibilis), then the roots cannot be expressed from the coefficients using real radicals alone, that is, complex non-real numbers must be involved if one expresses the roots from the coefficients using radicals,[2] probably unaware of the fact that Pierre Wantzel had already proved it in 1843. Molleme's research activity stopped in 1896, due to health problems.
Mollame was the author of a textbook on determinants.[3]