The Golden Age of Medieval Islam

 One thing that I found very interesting from this reading was the inception of the word "algorithm". I had never put much thought into where the word came from, so it was interesting to find out. Apparently al-Khwarizmi's book "The Book of Addition and Subtraction According to the Hindu Calculation" was so important that it was the first Arabic math book to be translated into Latin. Today the word "algorithm" is used to describe the act of calculating something, but it is derived from the Latin interpretation of al-Khwarizmi to "algorismi". 

It was also very interesting to learn about al-Khayyami's achievements with ratios. Specifically, I had no idea that his view of the ratio of the diagonal of a square to the side (sqrt 2) or the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter (pi) eventually lead to the introduction of positive real numbers. This is an achievement that has surely stood the test of time because we are still using positive real numbers today. 

Finally, it would be impossible not to mention al-Kashi's correct calculation of 2pi to 16 decimal places. Calculating the perimeters of inscribed and circumscribed polygons in a given circle having 805,306,368 sides. He even went as far as to describe how close he wanted his approximation to be and was correct. The time and effort that he put into this calculation show the true dedication that he had to his craft.