al-Khwarizmi

Arabic in full Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

(born c. 780, Baghdad, Iraq—died c. 850) Muslim mathematician and astronomer. He lived in Baghdad during the golden age of Islamic science and, like Euclid, wrote mathematical books that collected and arranged the discoveries of earlier mathematicians. His Al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala (“The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing”) is a compilation of rules for solving linear and quadratic equations, as well as problems of geometry and proportion. Its translation into Latin in the 12th century provided the link between the great Hindu and Arab mathematicians and European scholars. A corruption of the book's title resulted in the word algebra; a corruption of the author's own name resulted in the term algorithm.

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