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Muhammad Ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi Le calcul indien (algorismus). Versions latines du XIIe siecle (Collection d'Etudes Classiques)

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Our mathematical tradition has two main treads. The first, of course, came from the Greeks, and is called the geometrical tradition. This evolved to the axiomatic method that were perfected in the XIX century and made possible the variety of mathematical theories of the XX century. The second came from the arabs, who by the later Middle Ages were the ones who maintained the knowledge from the ancients and reported them to Europe. From them Europe came to know the arithmetical methods of India. The art of numerical reckoning arrived to Europe firstly through the work of Muhamad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, in latin Algorismus. But the original in Arab is lost, and we only know what he probably wrote through ancient manuscripts, latin translations and ammendments of the XII century. This book is the most serious attempt today to reconstruct the original work, through the analysis and comparisons of four distinct latin translations. It is impressive because the methods are essentially the same which we use today and learn since childhood. Sum, subtraction, multiplication and division, even extraction of roots, they are all there. And the critical aparatus easies the burden of understanding such an ancient work. Important work for all those who are interested in understand the origin of one of our most dearly traditions, the arithmetical and practical one, which was responsible, for instance, for the development of differential and integral calculus.