ScienceThe Middle East
Algebra
Mathematics about the unknown itself
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What was new was treating the unknown as a quantity you can manipulate systematically, independent of what the problem is about. The book was practical in bent — inheritance, trade, surveying — but the abstraction was revolutionary. Al-Khwarizmi also passed the Indian numerals on to the Islamic world and thence to Europe.
For children
Al-Khwarizmi wrote a book on solving equations by moving and balancing terms. The word "algebra" comes from its title, and "algorithm" from his name. Without this neither physics nor computers would have been possible.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org