Discoveries that changed the world | Numbers

Arab Weather - The people of Mesopotamia are thanks to the invention of numbers, who set their first rules about 3400 years BC, but the Pharaohs came about 300 years later, to develop the method of counting into something similar to what we use today. Since then, arithmetic scholars added many mathematical rules that developed the science of numbers in proportion to the human need.

Arab and Muslim contributions to developing numbers

In the past, the Arabs used letters to denote numbers in writing, that is, they used to write numbers in letters without having numbers to express them, until the era of the Abbasid Caliph Abu Jaafar al-Mansur came, in which the Indian numbers were used instead of just writing numbers in letters, and zero was not yet invented .

In 771, al-Mansur ordered the translation of Brahma Gupta’s book “Sidhanta,” which he wrote in the year 628 and used the nine numbers: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 before the Arabs added the zero after that.

The Arabs took this book until the era of the Caliph Al-Ma'mun. In the year 813, al-Khwarizmi used Indian numbers in astronomy books, and the Indians had multiple forms of numbers, and the Arabs chose a group of them, edited them and made a set of numbers that we today call the Indian numbers or the eastern Arabic numbers, and the Arabs used them in the Arab East, especially in the capital, Baghdad.

The numbers designed by Al-Khwarizmi were not widely spread in the Arab East, but they were well received by Arabs in Andalusia and the Maghreb, and from there they spread to Europe, then spread throughout the world as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 , 8, 9.

Al-Khwarizmi designed these numbers on the basis of the number of angles (acute or right) that each number contains. Number one includes one angle, number two includes two angles, number three includes three angles, etc.

Al-Khwarizmi stated in the introduction to his book "Al-Jabr and Al-Muqalaa" that he intended to compose Arabic numerals to present certain shapes and symbols for use among people instead of using letters in matters of inheritance, wills, trade and others.

The transfer of Arabic numerals to Europe

Pope Sylvester II studied at Al-Qarawiyyin University in Fez, Morocco, and he is the only pope who learned Arabic and mastered the sciences among the Arabs. He visited and was acquainted with the knowledge of many regions in the countries of the ancient Arab and Islamic world at the Al-Qarawiyyin University in Fez, Morocco, and to him he is credited with introducing Arabic knowledge such as arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy to Europe.

The Pope learned through his study of the Arabic number, and then he introduced the Arabic numbers to Europe, for that reason it is sometimes called the Pope of numbers, and Europe at that time used Roman / Latin numbers that did not help in performing the simplest arithmetic operations. Arabic numerals were a convenient and easy alternative. The reason for the spread of Arabic numerals in Europe was the beauty and simplicity of the Arabic symbols and the clarity of their interface.