Slight nitpick: I don’t think anybody ever set out to prove the non-existence of a general formula for solving large-degree polynomials. The goal always was to

Slight nitpick: I don’t think anybody ever set out to prove the non-existence of a general formula for solving large-degree polynomials. The goal always was to find one but they had to settle for second best: proving that there is no such formula, and thus that the search was over.