Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi And Why We Was Called Algebra

 

 Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and scholar who lived during the 9th century in Baghdad, which was the center of the Islamic world at the time. He is widely considered to be the father of algebra, and his contributions to the field have had a profound impact on mathematics and science.

Al-Khwarizmi's work on algebra was groundbreaking because he introduced systematic methods for solving linear and quadratic equations. He wrote a book called "Kitab al-Jabr wa al-Muqabala" (which translates to "The Book of Restoration and Balancing"), which presented these methods along with other mathematical concepts. The term "al-jabr" in the title of the book referred to the process of moving negative terms from one side of an equation to the other, which is similar to what we now call "simplifying" or "combining like terms."

The word "algebra" is actually derived from the Arabic word "al-jabr," which was used in the title of al-Khwarizmi's book. Over time, the word "al-jabr" came to be associated specifically with the methods of solving equations that al-Khwarizmi presented in his book, and the field of mathematics that deals with these methods came to be called algebra.

In addition to his work on algebra, al-Khwarizmi also made significant contributions to other fields of mathematics, including geometry and trigonometry. He also wrote about astronomy and geography, and his works were translated into Latin and other European languages, where they influenced the development of mathematics and science in the West.