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history of mathematics - National STEM Centre

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Chapter 5<br />

Arab <strong>mathematics</strong><br />

Introduction<br />

In this unit, the term 'Arab' refers to a civilisation containing many ethnic, religious<br />

and linguistic groups that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries AD. The<br />

Arab civilisation included 'non-Arab' lands, such as present-day Iran, Turkey,<br />

Afghanistan and Pakistan, all <strong>of</strong> which now have distinctive Islamic cultures. The<br />

mathematicians whose work is described in this unit all worked in Arabic.<br />

The unit consists <strong>of</strong> just one chapter which summarises some <strong>of</strong> the achievements <strong>of</strong><br />

these 'Arab' mathematicians.<br />

This unit is designed to take about 10 hours <strong>of</strong> your learning time. About half <strong>of</strong><br />

this time will be outside the classroom.<br />

There are summaries and further practice exercises in Chapter 12.<br />

Mathematical knowledge assumed<br />

• how to solve quadratic equations.<br />

53

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