Abū Kāmil Shujāʿ ibn Aslam ibn Muḥammad ibn Shujā (c. 850 – c. 930) Abu Kamil (Arabic: ابو كامل) for short, was an Egyptian Muslim mathematician during the Islamic Golden Age. He has also been called al-Hasib al-Misri—literally, "the Egyptian calculator."
Unlike the many polymaths of this era—notably al-Khwarizmi, al-Kindi, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen in the West), al-Biruni, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and Ibn Rushd (Averroes)—Abu Kamil was a specialist. His field was algebra.
His mathematical techniques were later adopted by Fibonacci, thus allowing Abu Kamil an important part in introducing algebra to Europe.[1][2]
Works
His Book on rare things in the art of calculation treated systems of equations whose solutions are whole numbers or fractions and also combinatorics. This work led to later research into the real numbers, solutions of polynomials, and finding roots by later scientists of the age such as al-Karaji and Ibn Yaḥyā al-Maghribī al-Samawʾal. His work The Book of Precious Things in the Art of Reckoning contains general methods for solving linear equations.
He was also the first to treat irrational numbers as algebraic objects.[3] He was the first to accept irrational numbers (often in the form of a square root, cube root or fourth root) as solutions to quadratic equations or as coefficients in an equation.[4] He was also the first to solve three non-linear simultaneous equations with three unknown variables.[5]
Notes
- ^ IO'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam ibn Muhammad ibn Shuja", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Abu_Kamil.html.
- ^ Livio, Mario (2003). The Golden Ratio. New York: Broadway. p. 96. ISBN 0767908163 [Amazon-US | Amazon-UK].
- ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Arabic mathematics: forgotten brilliance?", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Arabic_mathematics.html.
- ^ Jacques Sesiano, "Islamic mathematics", p. 148, in Selin, Helaine; D'Ambrosio, Ubiratan (2000). Mathematics Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Mathematics. Springer. ISBN 1402002602 [Amazon-US | Amazon-UK].
- ^ Berggren, J. Lennart (2007). "Mathematics in Medieval Islam". The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: A Sourcebook. Princeton University Press. p. 518. ISBN 9780691114859 [Amazon-US | Amazon-UK].
References
- Levey, Martin (1970). "Abū Kāmil Shujāʿ ibn Aslam ibn Muḥammad ibn Shujā". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 30–32. ISBN 0684101149 [Amazon-US | Amazon-UK].
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam ibn Muhammad ibn Shuja", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Abu_Kamil.html.
- Djebbar, Ahmed. Une histoire de la science arabe: Entretiens avec Jean Rosmorduc. Seuil (2001)
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