Around 820 CE, the Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, working in Baghdad's House of Wisdom, wrote Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabala (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing). The word "al-jabr" (restoration/completion) gave us the word "algebra," and al-Khwarizmi's Latinized name gave us "algorithm." The book systematically solved linear and quadratic equations using methods that were rhetorical (written in words) rather than symbolic. Al-Khwarizmi's work, translated into Latin in the 12th century, transmitted Hindu-Arabic numerals and algebraic methods to Europe, fundamentally transforming Western mathematics.
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