Aladdin in Khiva
Aladdin in Khiva
Al-Khwarizmi - the founder of Algebra from Khorezm (Uzbekistan)
Every time you pick up your mobile phone, remember, there is an old Uzbek Muslim hidden inside it....
The term Algebra itself comes from the title of his book (specifically the word al-jabr meaning "completion" or "rejoining"). His name gave rise to the terms Algorism and algorithm. His name is also the origin of (Spanish) guarismo and of (Portuguese) algarismo, both meaning digit.
Al-Khwarizmi's idea was to measure the Sun's angle to the Earth until it changed by one degree. He worked out that his men had walked 64.5 miles before the angle changed.
Using just sticks and a simple brass instrument, he calculated the circumference of the Earth to be 23,200 miles - a figure that, remarkably, is very close to the accurate calculation.
Al-Khwarizmi went on to create a series of charts, listing more than 2,000 cities and geographical features right across the Islamic empire.
Al-Khwarizmi was taking breakthroughs in trigonometry and arithmetic and putting them together and explaining them. His books were still being used hundreds of years later, and his real speciality was algorithms.
Algorithms are essential in modern computer programming, so every time you pick up your mobile phone, remember, there is an old Uzbek Muslim hidden inside it.
Adventures in Uzbekistan)
Erol Civan talks about his trip to Uzbekistan.
