Gerolamo (or Girolamo, or Geronimo) Cardano (Italian: [dʒeˈrɔlamo karˈdano]; French: Jérôme Cardan; Latin: Hieronymus Cardanus; 24 September 1501 – 21 September 1576) was an Italian mathematician, physician, astrologer, philosopher and gambler, best known as the earliest founder of probability and the establisher of the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem, which was comprised in his book, Opus novum de proportionibus.