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This is a worthwhile read even if you knew something about it.

How modern mathematics emerged from a lost Islamic library [bbc.com]

St-Sinner 9 Dec 7
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Mathematics was developed mostly in China and this spread through the Silk Road through Muslim traders. Muslim translated much of the Chinese concepts and of course contributed, however they were at their core Chinese.
Europeans had almost no contact with China and learned algebra and the concept of algorithms from the Arab scholars. They believed that it was the Arabs who invented it, however it was actually originally Chinese.

Actual modern mathematics grew from original Greek math and then later Chinese/Arab algebra and culminated with German and English mathematicians such as Leibnitz, Newton, Gauss etc etc., to give us the wonderful math tools we use everyday... differential equations.

Hanno Level 4 Dec 7, 2020
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And of course when the Arabic/Indian numerals arrived in Europe, the church tried to have them banned.

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I believe that it was a particular Caliph who turned Islam against science and probably mathematics.

That idea was promoted by a number of people it is true, especially famously by Neil Degrasse Tyson. But as many have pointed out, it is really a bit over simplified, it really took quite a long time.

What happened was the usual cycle of decline, when the golden age faded, as all things do in the end, and things got bad. Everyone started to look for someone to blame, and that played into the hands of the evangelical fundamentalists who were good at spreading blame. They insisted on less tolerance, that in turn of course made things worse, which in turn made people turn even more to the fundamentalists, who gained more power, becoming more intolerant, making things worse yet, so people gave them more trust and power etc.etc. Sound like anywhere you know ?

@Fernapple Are not people just wonderful to live with?

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