Understanding a Mediæval Algorithm : a Few Examples in Arab and Latin Geometrical Traditions of Measurement

Marc Moyon (1, 2)

1 FRED - Education et Diversité en Espaces Francophones
2 CAK-CRHST - Centre Alexandre Koyré - Centre de Recherche en Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques

Taking into account written texts from Arab and Latin traditions of the geometry of measurement, our main purpose is to describe several elements of algorithms in order to analyze how part of heir explicitness and tacitness could help the historian of mathematics to understand computations. After the introduction where the context is briefly exposed, we will focus on two different classical examples of the geometry of measurement. The first one is a series of problems on rectangles where additive relations on area, length and width are given, and it is necessary to find both length and width. The second problem is a sharing of land between heirs.

Mots clés: History of Mathematics; Geometry; Algorithm; Islamic Countries; Algebra

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Marc Moyon. Understanding a Mediæval Algorithm : a Few Examples in Arab and Latin Geometrical Traditions of Measurement. Oberwolfach Reports, 2012, 04/2012, pp.27-31. ⟨10.4171/OWR/2012/04⟩. ⟨hal-00933039⟩