I read part of a radio show Rush did about Obama's recent speech in Cairo, I wont post it here because it is full of untruths and I dont have the time or energy to do research to dispute it. any way Rush said this....This is simply outrageous. It was absurd, in fact. Let's see. Where do we start here? "It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra." No. The origins of algebra trace back to the ancient Babylonians. They were not Muslims. Algebra was temporarily developed by the ancient Greeks and later the English.
Why is it alright for people to go onto the airwaves and say what ever they want and call it the truth?
By 2000 BC the Babylonians had a well-developed algebra which was capable of solving quadratic equations by using a general formula as well as completing the square. This Babylonian algebra and the one developed by the Muslims in the 8th through 12th centuries AD were based on words rather than the symbolic type which arose in the 16th century AD in Europe and is now used. The very name of the subject, algebra, comes from the title of al-Khowarizmi's book on the subject, Hisab al-jabr wal-mugabalah, the science of reunion and opposition. In its everyday usage, al-jabr meant "reuniter of broken bones" or "bonesetter." The Muslim mathematician Omar Khayyam (better known today as a poet and author of The Rubricat) even developed geometric algorithms (another word with a Muslim origin) for solving some cubic and quartic equations.