On Monday night October 20, 2021, I tutored a student over zoom. I helped tutor her for her upcoming geometry test. The session was only one hour. We spent most of the session going over her study sheet. I noticed one mistake in her notes about reflections and rotations, so I helped her most with that section. We also went over some problems she had. This was my second time tutoring this student. She seems like she usually knows the material but she does not seem to work very hard and she does not turn her work in. I will now talk a little bit about Islam’s contributions to mathematics because I do not have much more to write about with this tutoring session.
During the Middle Ages Islam was experiencing a “golden age”. During the Golden Age of Islam many mathematic advances were made by Muslim scholars in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. Fractions were developed to use in place of decimals, algebra was also first studied, and advances in trigonometry and geometry were made. One notable figure is Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, who is known as a father of algebra. He developed ways to solve roots, polynomial equations, and reduction. His book was written in full sentences before symbols were used.
Another notable mathematician was Abu-Mahmud Khojandi who is credited with discovering the law of sines. Negative numbers were also further explored during this time. Irrational numbers were also used more during this time, but not extensively. Before this era in mathematics, the Greeks used geometry as a way to solve mathematical problems. During the Golden Age of Islam, the Islamic scholars were able to move away from the geometrical solutions to what we are now more familiar with, algebra.
I did not know that the boom of math was originated out of the Middle East, more specifically Islamic countries. I find it interesting that although the Greeks were studying math, they never got to the point of Algebra or Trig, rather using Geometry. Very interesting, thank you for the information!