Maths in the Early Islamic World

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2017

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flourishing of maths in the early Islamic world, as thinkers from across the region developed ideas in places such as Baghdad's House of Wisdom. Among them were the Persians Omar Khayyam, who worked on equations, and Al-Khwarizmi, latinised as Algoritmi and pictured above, who is credited as one of the fathers of algebra, and the Jewish scholar Al-Samawal, who converted to Islam and worked on mathematical induction. As well as the new ideas, there were many advances drawing on Indian, Babylonian and Greek work and, thanks to the recording or reworking by mathematicians in the Islamic world, that broad range of earlier maths was passed on to western Europe for further study. With Colva Roney-Dougal Reader in Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews Peter Pormann Professor of Classics & Graeco-Arabic Studies at the University of Manchester And Jim Al-Khalili Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:02.0	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:05.0	There's a reading list to go with it on our website and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC in our time.
0:12.0	I hope you enjoy the programs.
0:14.4	Hello mathematics flourished in the early Islamic world from the 8th century onwards.
0:18.8	Astonishingly versatile minds consumed all they could from Indian, Greek and Babylonian traditions
0:24.7	among others and made extraordinary leaps of their own which still affect what children in
0:29.1	simple form are taught at school today. One, Quarizmi, May 780 to 815, made his reputation for algebra, a word
0:38.2	taken from one of his great books just as algorithm comes from his name Westernized into Latin.
0:43.4	Another Persian Uma Kayam, now known for his poetry, solved complex cubic equations.
0:48.8	They and many others were inspired by new calculations
0:54.7	radiating from Baghdad under the Abbasid Caliphs and by the religious duty
0:58.9	to seek knowledge.
0:59.9	We are to discuss maths in the earliest Islamic world are Colverone Dughal, reader in pure mathematics at the University of St Andrews,
1:07.5	Peter Porman, Professor of Classics and Greco-Arabic Studies at the University of Manchester,
1:12.2	and Jim Al-Kalelli Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester and Jim Alkalelli professor of physics at the University of Surrey
1:16.4	Colba many mathematical traditions were drawn together in this period. Let's start with the Babylonians. What can you tell us about them and what did they offer to this period?
1:24.3	So first in terms of the location, the Babylonian Empire was centered in modern day Iraq and
1:30.1	neighbouring countries, so along the rivers Tigris and Euphrates so it's in
1:33.2	exactly the same place as the locations we're going to be talking about later.
1:37.2	It's much much older though so Babylonian culture started really flourishing
1:41.6	about 3,000 BC until about 200 BC so it's as far
	...

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