On the history of the Bézoutian and the resultant matrix (Q922614)

This exciting story starts with two algorithms given by Euler (1748) to construct, in the ideal generated by F(x,y) and G(x,y), a polynomial independent of Y. Bézout (1764) described a reduction method which leads to a certain system of linear equations. It was Cayley (1857) who observed that the matrix of this system may be identified with the matrix known today as the Bézoutian, i.e. the matrix whose generating function is the polynomial \((f(x)g(y)-g(x)f(y))/(x-y)\).