Storiascopio · Era 7 of 12 · lower secondary year 1
Hindu-Arabic numerals head west
about AD 825 · Baghdad (now Iraq)
In short
In India nine digits and a sign for zero had been used for centuries, in a system where a digit's value changes according to its position. Around AD 825 the scholar al-Khwarizmi, who worked in Baghdad in the ‘House of Wisdom’, wrote a book explaining how to calculate with these digits. His works, translated into Latin a few centuries later, made the method known in Europe too. The word ‘algorithm’ comes from his name.
Why it matters With Hindu-Arabic numerals, doing sums became much simpler than with Roman numerals.
Source: Treccani, entry “al-Khuwarizmi”
Where we are in the era “Early Middle Ages”
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about AD 480Event 16 of 25about 1000
Your turn
Name ______________________ Class ______ Date __________
When did it happen? Find the date at the top and write it here:
Tell it in your own words: what happened?
Draw the scene below.
storiascopio.com/en/event/hindu-arabic-numerals-head-west/ · free worksheet, you may photocopy it for your class