My idol

My Idol

           My Idol is Al Khawarizmi, the inventor of Algebra and number zero. I admire him so much because I think the world would have been very different without his invention. His full name was Muhammad ibn Musa Al Khawarizmi. Western people have several names for him : Al Khawarizmi, Al Cowarizmi, Al Ahawizmi, Al Karismi, Al Goritmi, Al Gorismi, and many other. Al Khawarizmi was born in Bukhara/Khawarizm (now called Khiva, Uzbekistan) in 780 C.E. and died in Bagdad in 850 C.E. He was not only an expert in Mathematics, but also in the fields of philosophy, logic, arithmetic, music, history of Islam, and chemistry.

          Almost his entire life, Al Khawarizmi spent working as a lecturer at the School of Honor in Baghdad, precisely in Bayt al-Hikmah, Baghdad. He worked in an observatory, which was a place for studying mathematics and astronomy. Besides, Al Khawarizmi was believed to lead the caliph library. He had introduced the Indian numbers and the Indian calculation system in the Islamic world. He was also an encyclopedia author in various disciplines.

          The first book written by him was entitled algebra. That book discussed the systematic solution of linear and quadratic notation. Since then, he was called 'the father of algebra' or we, Indonesians, often call him Bapak Aljabar.

These numbers were invented by Al-Khawarizmi

           He wrote so many books. The first book was Al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa-l-muqābala. This book discussed the systematic solution of linear and quadratic notation. The second book was Kitāb al-Jam’a wa-l-tafrīq bi-ḥisāb al-Hind. It contains Dixit algorizmi, arithmetic, and astronomic table. The third book, surest Al-Art was about planetarium reconstruction, weather zone, as well as the influence of latitude and longitude to the weather. Other books, Zij Al-Sindhind and Risala fi istikhraj Ta’rikh Al-yahud, discussed about astronomy.

A Latin translation of Al-Khawarizmi's Zij

A page from Al-Khawarizmi's Algebra

          Al-Khawarizmi's personality has been recognized by Moslem people and the Western world. It could be proved by G. Sarton's statement which said "the highest achievements have been obtained by east people...". Another figure, Wiedmann said 'Al Khawarizmi had a firm personality and the devoted his life to science wold'.

Khawarizmi statue in Amir Kabir University

Statue of Al Khawarizmi in his home town, Khiva, Uzbekistan

           Because of his achievements, people built a statue of him. We cannot imagine a world without his inventions. It could have been very difficult to do the counting and understand the universe. There would have been no jobs such as engineer, accountant, cashier or astronaut. There would have been no satellites, no spacecrafts and no computers. Technology development would have been very slow without his brilliant innovations.