Asher.
I had asked my granddaughter a simple question; knowing full well that she would know one of the most famous of mathematical equations. That of A. Einstein and the relationship between mass, energy and the speed of light. Without knowing the details.
I could easily have asked her the following much simpler expression : Y = X. Simple. Y-X = 0. Simpler still.
Or one of Kepler's equations; or Newton's. Or A.Friedman's expanding universe model. ( Einstein initially believed in a static universe ! ). But I digress.
Let's visit Khiva as it was a couple of weeks ago!...
The old fortress walls surround the old city of Khiva. It is a UNESCO world heritage site.
Step inside...and step back in time...
Within these walls lived a man, long time ago. This mathematician created a system that provided the key to begin unlocking all planes of the universe.
The Greeks are held in reverence for their work in geometry..and rightly so. ( The word ' geometria ' literally means measurement of the earth ). And their geometry was earthbound. Spaces, sometimes in abstract terms, but always reducible to a physical reality.
This man freed the human mind from those limits and let it soar. He built upon the works of greats that had come before him. Be they Greeks or Hindus or the Babylonians!
His numbers and ways of calculation would enable later generations...hundreds of years later, to calculate the point of intersection of a space probe with one of the moons of Jupiter. Or the cellular processes of biotechnology and even the encryption of cellular conversations.
Or enable Kepler, Newton and Einstein to be able to formulate their individual brilliance.
History does strange things. The world shall forget this man, even as we today use his name and the mathematics he gave us. And one day some Western historians shall even deny that he was great.
He wrote many books...on astronomy, geography and mathematics.
He shall be disenfranchised from the very creation of his mind. While others would take the credit.
Until about the 16th century, 700 years after his death, the Europeans will honor and dignify everything they postulate with the concluding footnote ' dixit algoritmi '.
His most famous surviving books are ' Al- jabr ' and ' Al- muqabala '. meaning restoring and comparing respectively.
He would have created the way to represent mathematical equations with abstracts. Think about it.
Near his death, he would say..' Allah gave me the knowledge to count camels and sheep '.
His name was Mohammed Al-Khwarizmi. Born in Khwarizm, Khiva.
My granddaughter recognizes a famous equation. But what about the man that created the very foundations of representing mathematical formulations? She was never taught about that.
I made sure she knows, that progress is made on the shoulders of the greats that went before. Even if lost to history.
