History of Algebra

By jack latta
  • 1850 BCE

    Old Babylonian

    Old Babylonian
    The earliest mathematics appeared in Mesopotamia some 3,500 or more years BCE with a variety of specific number systems for trading with different things like grain and cereals, milk and dairy produce, or things made out of clay or wood.
  • 1550 BCE

    Egypt the rhind papyrus

    Egypt the rhind papyrus
    Early methods for solving problems come from the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, written in Egypt about 1,550 years BCE. It is a 'problem text' of exercises for training scribes, who were the administrators.
  • 500 BCE

    Early indian mathematics

    Early indian mathematics
    The Vedic people entered India about 1500 BCE. The name comes from their sacred rituals called the Vedas. These date from about the 15th to the 5th century BCE and were used for sacrificial rites which took place at an altar.
  • 350 BCE

    Greek geometry

    Greek geometry
    The myth that the Greeks could not deal with irrational magnitudes has no basis in fact.
  • 762

    The Arab civilization

    The Arab civilization
    The work of Diophantus was also translated and Baghdad became a centre for learning, attracting many scholars from the known world.
  • 770

    The father

    The father
    Al-Khwarizmi was probably first among a number of scholars who showed how the geometrical constructions of Euclid Book II and the arithmetical heritage from Diophantus' Arithmetica , and the ideas from the Middle East and Indian scholars could be shown to be equivalent.
  • 1450

    Medieval Algebra

    Medieval Algebra
    Mediaeval Algebra in Western Europe was first learnt from the works of Al-Khwarizmi, Abu Kamil and Fibonacci.
  • 1484

    Early Renaissance Algebra

    Early Renaissance Algebra
    Nicolas Chuquet was described as an 'algoriste' and his manuscript on Le Triparty en la Science des Nombres (1484) was known only to a few of his contemporaries.
  • 1501

    Late Renaissance and Early Modern Algebra

    Late Renaissance and Early Modern Algebra
    Cardano earned his living as a doctor and by casting horoscopes; he wrote on probability and published other books but his importance for us rests on his Artis Magnae sive de Regulis Algebraicas Liber Unus(1545)

  • Notation and Representation

    Notation and Representation
    By the middle of the 17th Century the representation of elementary algebraic problems and relations looked much as it is today. The major factors influencing change were the printing press that provided wider communication of ideas.