Abu Kamil
Egyptian mathematician of Abbasid era (c. 850 – 930) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Abū Kāmil Shujāʿ ibn Aslam ibn Muḥammad Ibn Shujāʿ (Latinized as Auoquamel,[1] Arabic: أبو كامل شجاع بن أسلم بن محمد بن شجاع, also known as Al-ḥāsib al-miṣrī—lit. "The Egyptian Calculator") (c. 850 – c. 930) was a prominent Egyptian mathematician during the Islamic Golden Age. He is considered the first mathematician to systematically use and accept irrational numbers as solutions and coefficients to equations.[2] His mathematical techniques were later adopted by Fibonacci, thus allowing Abu Kamil an important part in introducing algebra to Europe.[3]
Abu Kamil أبو كامل | |
---|---|
Born | c. 850 |
Died | c. 930 |
Other names | Al-ḥāsib al-miṣrī |
Academic background | |
Influences | Al-Khwarizmi |
Academic work | |
Era | Islamic Golden Age (Middle Abbasid era) |
Main interests | Algebra, geometry |
Notable works | The Book of Algebra |
Notable ideas |
|
Influenced | Al-Karaji, Fibonacci |
Abu Kamil made important contributions to algebra and geometry.[4] He was the first Islamic mathematician to work easily with algebraic equations with powers higher than (up to ),[3][5] and solved sets of non-linear simultaneous equations with three unknown variables.[6] He illustrated the rules of signs for expanding the multiplication .[7] He wrote all problems rhetorically, and some of his books lacked any mathematical notation beside those of integers. For example, he uses the Arabic expression "māl māl shayʾ" ("square-square-thing") for (as ).[3][8] One notable feature of his works was enumerating all the possible solutions to a given equation.[9]
The Muslim encyclopedist Ibn Khaldūn classified Abū Kāmil as the second greatest algebraist chronologically after al-Khwarizmi.[10]