Gerard of Cremona’s Translation of al-Khwarizmi’s Al-jabr pdf download

 Gerard of Cremona’s Translation of al-Khwarizmi’s Al-jabr

GERARD OF CREMONA’S TRANSLATION OF AL-KHWARIZMI’S AL-JABR

The most significant mathematical innovations of the high Middle Ages were the introduction of algebra into Western Europe through the translations of al-Khwarizmi’s al-Kitab al-mukhatasar fi hisab al-jabr wa’l- muqabala {Liber algebre et aimuchabata) and the foundation of abacist arithmetic in the Liber abaci by Leonardo da Pisa.

The latter work has been subjected to considerable study; more is certainly warranted.

The translations of Hisab ahjabr, however, have long been in a process of sorting and study, In 1 838 Guillaume Libri published a faulty edition of Gerard’s translation, Twelve years later Prince Baldassarre Boncompagni presented a transcription of William of Lunis translation which the Prince incorrectly accepted as that of Gerard of Cremona.

Louis Karpin ski in 1915 offered a critical edition of a late copy of Robert of Chester’s translation. Several years ago I reported on sixteen copies of the three translations; 6 and in the near future my new critical edition. Boncompagni, Scrltii di Leonardo Pisano. I (Rome, 1 857), pp. 1-459.

Apart from studies in standard histories of mathematics, e.g,, M. Cantor, Voriesatigen uher Geschichte der Mathematik (Leipzig, 1 894), pp. 676-89, useful information may be found in K. Vogel, ‘Fibonacci, Leonardo’, Dictionary of Scientific Biography 4 (New York, J 971), pp. 604-13 (hereafter cited as DSB X particularly for the bibliography, and B. Boncompagni, ‘Della vita e delle opere di Leonardo Pisano matemalico del secolo decjmolerzo’, Atti dell’ Accadentia pontificia de rtuovi lincet 5.1-3 (l 85 1 -52) (hereafter cited as Aid), which describes the codices containing Liber abaci.