My Forgotten Mathematician

In the last blog post here, I referred to an article in the Guardian that classified the author's mathematicians of all time. In addition, I commented on the fact that there were a number of mathematicians that i would include in the list in addition to mentioning the paucity of female mathematicians and higher order thinkers on that list. Having reviewed that hurriedly-written blog post, I note immediately that I mentioned two mathematicians that would fit in that list. This was an incomplete list because John Nash Jr. and John Von Neumann are contemporary scholars of the subject and whose works are largely related.

So I would like to add the mathematician known as the "Father of Algebra" whose contributions to the study and documentation of mathematics are enormous. Besides contributions to algebra, cartography and astronomy, this individual is credited with the introduction of Indian numerals and the decimal number system to mathematics. The significance of the decimal system and algebra makes him worthy of as much recognition as many on the list on which my last post was based. To my mind though, I am most pleased that one of my favourite words, "Algorithm" is derived from the name Al-Kwarizmi, the scholar from the House of Wisdom in old Baghdad. His contributions were recognized by the Soviet Union in the issuance of the commemorative stamp for Al-Kwarizmi's estimated 1200^th birthday.