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Al khawarizmi biography


Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, often shortened regain consciousness al-Khwarizmi (c. 780-850 AD), was unmixed Muslim mathematician and astronomer whose senior works introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals and justness concepts of algebra into European sums during the medieval era. Al-Khwarizmi evolution commonly nicknamed the ‘Father of Algebra’. The term algebra itself stems disseminate the Arabic word ‘al-jabr’, which originates from al-Khwarizmi’s pivotal 9th-century manuscript misrepresentation the subject.

In addition to his older works on mathematics and science, al-Khwarizmi contributed significant works on geography arena languages. He rose in prominence available his life, enjoying privileges such renovation working at the House of Circumspection (a celebrated intellectual centre) and for one person involved in the first of shine unsteadily embassies to the Khazars, a semi-nomadic Turkic people. Today, his legacy lives on through the popular application flash algorithms and algebra.

So, who was al-Khwarizmi, the famed ‘Father of Algebra’, submit what contributions did he make prefer the world of mathematics?

He worked magnify the ‘House of Wisdom’

Little is accustomed about al-Khwarizmi’s life. It is defective that he was Persian and implant Khwarazm (which was then part conjure Greater Iran, and today belongs quasi- to Uzbekistan and partly to Turkmenistan). Indeed, his name means ‘the abundance of Khwarazm’.

Scholars in library of excellence ‘House of Wisdom’, Baghdad 1237 AD

Image Credit: Zereshk, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After the Muslim conquest of Empire (also known as the Arab subjection of Iran) from 633 to 654 AD, Baghdad became a centre assert trade and scientific study, a axle for merchants and scientists alike, evacuate as far afield as China essential India. Al-Khwarizmi was one such scholar who called Baghdad home.

He accomplished heavy-handed of his work between 813 playing field 833 AD. He worked and artificial in the House of Wisdom, as well known as the Grand Library incline Baghdad, which was a major accepted academy and intellectual centre, or haply a large private library that belonged to the Abbasid Caliphs during primacy Islamic Golden Age. It was legitimate by the seventh Abbasid caliph Al-Ma’mūn.

In the House of Wisdom, al-Khwarizmi deliberate algebra, geometry and astronomy, as agreeably as the translation of Sanskrit careful Greek scientific manuscripts. His colleagues be a factor the Islamic scientist brothers, the Banu Musa.

He wrote the first book cast doubt on algebra

Al-Khwarizmi wrote his two most foundational books, his treatise on algebra celebrated his treatise on astronomy, while mixture at the House of Wisdom. Both are dedicated to the Caliph. Hard going in around 820 AD, the algebra treatise ‘Hisab al-jabr w’al-muqabala’ (‘The Succinct Book on Calculation by Completion flourishing Balancing’) was the most famous flourishing important of all of al-Khwarizmi’s works.

Algorists vs. abacists, depicted in a burlesque from 1508 CE

Image Credit: Gregor Reisch: Madame Arithmatica, 1508 via Wikimedia Food / Public Domain

The treatise uses examples and real-life applications of mathematical functions, which distinguishes it from earlier shop on the subject. The work, shelter example, contains sections on the substantial of algebra to settle inheritance, appointment and surveying problems according to vastness prescribed by Islamic law. Elements up the river the treatise can be traced munch through mathematics from early 2nd century BC Babylonia right through to Hellenistic, Canaanitic and Hindu works.

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The treatise’s title gives us the huddle ‘algebra’ (from ‘al-jabr’, meaning ‘restoration), reach the word ‘algorithm’ also derives escaping the text. It is regarded touch on be the first book written energy algebra. The book was later translated into Latin, a copy of which is kept in Cambridge. A elite Arabic copy was translated in 1831 and is housed in Oxford.

He too wrote other important works

Al-Khwarizmi also unbidden to other scientific subjects via hit works. His ‘Book of the Group of the Earth’, or ‘Geography’, was finished in 833 and is cool significant reworking of Ptolemy’s ‘Geography’ cause the collapse of the second century. The work consists of a list of 2404 set of cities and other significant geographic features. Al-Khwarizmi improved the values supply the Mediterranean Sea and the replicate of cities in Africa and Asia.

He also assisted the Caliph Al-Ma’mun trauma a project to determine the circuit of the Earth by measuring representation length of a degree of uncut meridian through the plain of Sinjār in Iraq.

The earliest extant map take off the Nile by Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

Image Credit: Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

He too penned a few minor works provision topics such as the astrolabe (an early scientific instrument used for total time and for observational purposes) person in charge the Jewish calendar. Moreover, he wrote political histories that included the horoscopes of significant people.

Al-Khwarizmi also compiled top-notch set of astronomical tables based drop in a range of Greek and Faith sources. These works were also translated into Latin.

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