document.write( "<A HREF=/cgi-bin/jump-to-question.mpl?question=86102>Question 86102</A>: <I><SPAN STYLE=\"word-break: break-all;\"> Where does the word \"algebra\" come from?<BR>\n" );
document.write( " </SPAN>\n" );
document.write( "</I><HR><TABLE width=100%><TR><TD><B><A HREF=http://www.algebra.com/>Algebra.Com's</A> Answer #62227 by </B><A HREF=/tutors/aboutme.mpl?userid=bucky><B>bucky(2189)</B></A><img src=\"/images/stars/stars-13.gif\" alt=\"\" >&nbsp;<A HREF=/tutors/aboutme.mpl?userid=bucky><IMG SRC=http://www.algebra.com/images/aboutme-small.gif BORDER=0 alt=\"About Me\" VALIGN=MIDDLE></A>&nbsp;<IMG SRC=http://www.algebra.com/images/nopicture.jpg><BR>You can <A HREF=\"/cgi-bin/embed-solution.mpl?show=1&solution=62227\">put this solution on YOUR website!</A><BR><SPAN STYLE=\"word-break: break-all;\"> The following information comes from three sources. The first source (1) is from the magazine <BR>\n" );
document.write( "\"Saudi Aramco World\", May/June 2007 issue, page 8. The second source (2) is quoted from <BR>\n" );
document.write( "Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, and can be found by doing a Wikipedia search on \"algebra.\"<BR>\n" );
document.write( "And the third source (3) is Webster's New World Dictionary, second college edition, 1980 <BR>\n" );
document.write( ".<BR>\n" );
document.write( "(1) [Harun al-Rashid] founded Baghdad's first hospital and a separate scientific academy <BR>\n" );
document.write( "known as Bayt al-Hikmah (\"House of Wisdom\"). Initially little more than a caliph's <BR>\n" );
document.write( "private library, the House of Wisdom became a full-blown research and translation <BR>\n" );
document.write( "center and astronomical observatory under al-Rashid's son, Caliph al-Ma'mun, who ruled <BR>\n" );
document.write( "from 813 to 833. It was here that the versatile al-Khwarizmi developed algebra and, <BR>\n" );
document.write( "turning his hand to cartography, drafted an elaborate map tracing the meanders of the <BR>\n" );
document.write( "Nile River.\r<BR>\n" );
document.write( "<BR>\n" );
document.write( "\n" );
document.write( "(2) The name [algebra] is derived from the treatise written by the Persian mathematician <BR>\n" );
document.write( "Muhammad bin M&#363;s&#257; al-Khw&#257;rizm&#299; titled (in Arabic \"Al-Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabala\" <BR>\n" );
document.write( "meaning \"The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing\"), which provided <BR>\n" );
document.write( "symbolic operations for the systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations.<BR>\n" );
document.write( ".<BR>\n" );
document.write( "(3) algebra: (Arabic al-jabra meaning the reunion of broken parts, from al => \"the\" + jabra => <BR>\n" );
document.write( "\"to reunite\".)<BR>\n" );
document.write( ".<BR>\n" );
document.write( "Hopefully this gives you some useful background to the origin of the term we know as <BR>\n" );
document.write( "\"algebra.\" <BR>\n" );
document.write( " </SPAN>\n" );
document.write( "</TD></TR></TABLE>\n" );