Ask A Scientist Mathematics Archive

[Revised 7/29/2005]

Author:      elizabeth
Who founded algebra?

Response #:  1 of 1
Author:      chaffer
No one person appears to have invented algebra in all its complexity and
glory. Instead, it appears to have sort of "grown up."  Western Europeans
learned their algebra from the works of the Persian mathematician Muhammed ibn
Musa al-Khowarizmi.  The word, algebra, is a corruption of al-jabr which is
part of the title of his treatise, Hisab al-jabr w'al muqabalah which means
something like, "the science of reunion and reduction."  It is pretty clear
that the Persians got some of these ideas from earlier work of the Babylonians,
Egyptians, Chinese, Hindus, and who knows else.