Big Ideas That Changed the World No. 2: Machines That Think!
C. 820 CE Baghdad Iraq
The House of Wisdom an extensive library and a major center of learning 1
SIGH Numbers I know a thing or two about them My writings helped popularize the zero through nine counting system that's used around the world Without me you might still be stuck doing math with the Ls and Xs of Roman numerals Ugh That would be awful I'm mathematician Muhammad ibn Mūsā al Khwārizmi Some people have twisted my name into Algoritmi but I think you can do better Al Khwārizmi Al kraw iz mee That's it I knew you could do it So you ask did you invent the numbers we use today No I learned about zero through nine from the Hindus of ancient India But my writings spread their use and since I lived in the Arab world people mistakenly called them Arabic numerals 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Arabic numerals are easier to use than Roman numerals but can still be difficult when there are a lot of them Just think about those homework assignments in which you have to add a giant column of numbers It's hard and boring Well you aren't the first to feel that way Through the years people have wrestled with big numbers Over time there have been lots of ideas to make computing adding subtracting multiplying and dividing less of a chore But it wasn't until the invention of the computer that working with numbers became a snap And that big idea led to the bigger idea of using computers to do things beyond computing things the people of my time couldn't have even dreamed And you could say it all started with stones in the sand 3
