The origin of the word dates back more than a thousand years ago. And the invention of the concept is attributed to a Persian polymath and scientist considered “the grandfather of computing.”
Algorithms have become an integral part of our lives. From social media apps to Netflix, they are programs that learn our preferences and prioritize the content we are shown. Google Maps and artificial intelligence are nothing without them. But where does the word come from?
More than 1,000 years before the internet and smartphone apps, Persian scientist and polymath Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī invented the concept of an algorithm. In fact, the word itself comes from the Latinized version of his name, algorithmi. And, as you might suspect, it is also related to algebra.
Lost in time
Al-Khwārizmī lived between 780 and 850, during the Islamic Golden Age. He is considered the “father of algebra” and, for some, the “grandfather of computing.” However, few details are known about his life. Many of his original works in Arabic have been lost to time. He is believed to have been born in the Khorasmian region, south of the Aral Sea, in modern-day Uzbekistan. He lived during the Abbasid Caliphate, a time of notable scientific progress in the Islamic Empire.
We know that he made important contributions to mathematics, geography, astronomy and trigonometry. He corrected Ptolemy 's classic cartography book , Geography , to make the world map more accurate. He also made calculations to track the movement of the Sun, Moon, and planets. In addition, he wrote about trigonometric functions and created the first table of tangents.
For all his qualities, Al-Khwārizmī served as a scholar in the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikmah) in Baghdad. In this intellectual center, scholars translated knowledge from around the world into Arabic and synthesized it to achieve significant advances in various disciplines.
A devoted mathematician
Al-Khwārizmī was a religious man. His scientific writings began with dedications to Allah and the Prophet Muhammad. And one of the main projects they undertook at the House of Wisdom was to develop algebra. Mathematics was, in general, a field deeply related to Islam .
Around 830, the Caliph Al-Mamun encouraged Al-Khwārizmī to write a treatise on algebra, Al-Jabr (or Compendium of Calculus by Reintegration and Comparison ), which would become his most important work.
By now, algebra had been around for hundreds of years, but Al-Khwārizmī was the first to write a definitive book on it. It was intended to be a practical teaching tool and its Latin translation was the basis of algebra manuals in European universities until the 16th century.
Father of algebra
In the first part of the book, he introduces the concepts and rules of this subject, as well as the methods for calculating the volumes and areas of figures. In the second, he poses real-life problems and elaborates solutions, such as inheritance cases, the division of land, and calculations for trade.
Al-Khwārizmī did not use modern mathematical notation with numbers and symbols. Instead, he wrote in simple prose and used geometric diagrams: Four roots are equal to twenty, so one root is equal to five, and the square formed from it is twenty-five, or half the root is equal to ten.
In modern notation we would write it like this: 4x = 20, x = 5, x2 = 25, x / 2 = 10
Grandfather of computing
Al-Khwārizmī's mathematical writings introduced the Hindu-Arabic numerals to Western mathematicians: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. These symbols are important to the history of computing because they use the number zero and a base ten decimal system, the number system on which modern computer technology is based.
Furthermore, Al-Khwārizmī's art of calculating mathematical problems laid the foundation for the concept of algorithm. He provided the first detailed explanations of using decimal notation to perform the four basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and calculating fractions.
It was a more efficient calculation method than the abacus. To solve a mathematical equation, you systematically went through a sequence of steps until you found the answer. This is the underlying concept of an algorithm.
Algorithm, a medieval Latin term named after Al-Khwārizmī, refers to the rules for performing arithmetic operations using the Hindu-Arabic number system. Translated into Latin, Al-Khwārizmī's book on Hindu numbers was titled Algorithmi de Numero Indorum .
At the beginning of the 20th century, the word acquired its current definition and use: “Ordered and finite set of operations that allows finding the solution to a problem.” So the next time we use any digital technology – from social media to the online bank account to the Spotify app – we already know that none of this would be possible without the pioneering work of an ancient Persian polymath.
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