Al-Khwarizmi (770 - 850 CE)

Abu Ja'far Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was born in Khwarizim, in present-day Uzbekistan. As a mathematician he is known as 'the father of Algebra', but he also excelled in astronomy and geography. He was appointed astronomer and mathematician by the Caliph al-Ma'mun to the greatest research institution of the time, Bayt al-Hikmah (The House of Wisdom), established by the Caliph in Baghdad. His most famous mathematical work is Kitab al-Mukhtasar Fi Hisab al-Jabr Wa al-Muqabalah (The Book of Summary in the Process of Calculation for Restoration and Equation). The word algebra is derived from the term al-Jabr in the title of the book. This was a giant leap for mankind, for without algebra modern mathematics would not have been possible.

The first part of al-Khwarizmi's book was translated into Latin in 1145 CE by Robert ,of Chester under the title Liber Algebrae et Almucabala, thereby passing the ideasand the term itself, on to Europe. Perhaps an even greater contribution to Mathematics by al-Khwarizmi was the introduction of what are called the Arabic numerals, developed and enhanced from other civilisations such as the Indian, and the use of the zero. This again created a revolution in mathematics, enabling addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to be carried out significantly faster and easier than Roman numerals allowed. The use of the zero gave us the decimal system.

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