The Nexus Archive
Mathematics
al-Khwarizmi
The Systematizer of Algebra · Abbasid Baghdad, c. 780-c. 850
al-Khwarizmi turns calculation into a systematic art of completion, reduction, roots, squares, and equations.
- Algebra
- Completion
- Reduction
- Equations
- Procedure
Life
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was a mathematician and astronomer associated with the House of Wisdom in Abbasid Baghdad. His algebra treatise systematized methods for solving equations and helped give later mathematics both the word algebra and a procedural way of thinking about unknown quantities.
The question
“How can an unknown quantity be governed by rules?”
Argued against
Calculation as isolated trick, disorderly procedure, and mathematical reasoning without a general method.