Early Greek Algebra

Overview



The word algebra came from an Arabic _expression, al-jabr wa’l muqabala, which was the title of the first Arabic text on algebra. Al-Khwarizmi wrote the book in the ninth century A.D. According to Al-Khwarizmi, algebra was “ the art of reducing and solving equations” (van der Waerden 70). From the very beginning of its introduction, algebra was influenced by geometry. For example, the Babylonians view unknown quantities as lengths and widths and their products as areas. The product of two same numbers was called square.



Greek algebra was greatly influenced by the Babylonians because Pythagoras brought it from there. The Pythagoreans studied Babylonian’s algebra and used the Babylonian’s method for solving equations in Greek algebra. Euclid recorded Pythagorean’s findings. Euclid’s solutions to problems were similar to Babylonian’s solution to similar problems. Euclid rewrote Babylonian’s problems so that the problems do not include fractions ...