Abu-Rayhon Beruniy

Al-Khorezmi Muhammed Bin - Mussa

(783 - 850)

Nickname Al – Khorezmi specifies his native land – the Central Asian state Khoresm (nowadays territory of Uzbekistan), Bin Mussa – "son of Mussa", and one of nicknames of the scientist – Al – Madjusi– speaks about his origin from a sort of magicians (on – Arabic "madjus"). It shows also, that one of sources of knowledge of Mohammed Al – Хорезми was science prior to Islamic Central Asia the keepers of which were magicians. He managed in Baghdad the library of wisdom House of some sort of the Baghdad academy at caliphate of Al – Mamun. There were the arithmetic treatise « The Book about the Indian account », the algebraic treatise « The Brief book about calculation of algebra and almukabal», astronomical tables and a geographical path. Both mathematical treatises have been translated into Latin language of medieval Europe and served for a long time as the basic textbooks on mathematics. Nickname Al-Khorezmi in the modified form has turned to a nominal word "algorithm" and all over again meant all system of decimal item arithmetics. Subsequently this term has received a wider sense in mathematics as a rule performing operations in certain order. 
Thus, actions « Al - Djebr» and "Al-Mukabala" have replaced with themselves transfer of nowadays-used equation members from one part of the equation into another and reduction of similar members. These two operations have allowed Al – Khorezmi to transfer any algebraic equation of the first and second degree into initial forms which Al – Khorezmi has six.

Unlike Greeks who, certainly, also solved quadratic equations, but solved in geometrical way, Al – Khorezmi used drawings only for explanation of the rhetorical decision validity. He could solve any quadratic equation by his general rule (finding positive roots). If Greeks had geometrical solutions the method Al – Khorezmi was almost algebraic. This is an enormous step forward in comparison with geometrical algebra of Greeks. In the arithmetic treatise Al – Khorezmi basically followed the Indian samples, and from him the Europeans have got familiar with the Indian methods of recording the numbers, that is the use of zero and location of figures values. The algebraic path differed from both works, that of Indian mathematicians, and Greeks. It can be believed, that in this book Al – Khorezmi followed local traditions and own results. If the majority of Greeks did not see necessity to apply the scientific knowledge to practical needs, the main desire of Al – Khorezmi was to place a science to serve to humankind and to adapt it for the practical purposes. In Algebra Al – Khorezmi has a section about trade and commercial transactions, with problems on a threefold Rule.

Thus, for the first time in a history of mathematics in the treatise of Al – Хорезми have appeared the general rules of solving the quadratic equations.