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Young World
WORLD OF SCIENCE
Euclid and Al-Uqlidisi
DR. T. V. PADMA
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Al-Uqlidisi’s greatest legacy was the practice of recording mathematical steps.
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Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar
Writing on sand: Elusive.
You’ve probably heard of the Greek mathematician Euclid, but have you ever heard of Al-Uqlidsi? Al-Uqlidsi was an Arab mathematician who lived in the 10th century. If you are wondering why their names sound very much alike, here’s the reason — and it’s no coincidence.
Al-Uqlidsi was an admirer of Greek mathematicians and he copied the works of Euclid, earning him his name.
We owe Al-Uqlidisi a great deal. His greatest legacy was the practice of recording mathematical steps. Most other Islamic mathematicians of the time wrote their calculations on sand and then erased the preceding steps as soon as they arrived at the answer to the problem.
On record
However, Al-Uqlidisi began to record intermediate steps and recommended that this be done partly because he wanted to distinguish himself from those he considered to be beneath him in social rank, such as “street astrologers”!
Arabs are often described as great custodians of science — the idea being that all they did was to preserve the scientific contributions made by the Ancient Greeks and other cultures. However, this is a highly Eurocentric and condescending view that does not give credit to the many significant and creative scientific contributions the Arabs made.
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