difficult to believe that this work of Diophantus arose spontaneously in a period of general stagnation. It is more than likely that he was indebted to earlier writers, whom he omits to mention, and whose works are now lost; nevertheless, but for this work, we should be led to assume that algebra was almost, if not entirely, unknown to the Greeks.
The Romans, who succeeded the Greeks as the chief civilized power in Europe, failed to set store on their literary and scientific treasures; mathematics was all but neglected; and beyond a few improvements in arithmetical computations, there are no material advances to be recorded.
In the chronological development of our subject we have now to turn to the Orient. Investigation of the writings of Indian mathematicians has exhibited a fundamental distinction between the Greek and Indian mind, the former being pre-eminently geometrical and speculative, the latter arithmetical and mainly practical. We find that Indian algebra.geometry was neglected except in so far as it was of service to astronomy; trigonometry was advanced, and algebra improved far beyond the attainments of Diophantus.
The earliest Indian mathematician of whom we have certain knowledge is Aryabhatta, who flourished about the beginning of the 6th century of our era. The fame of this astronomer and mathematician rests on his work, the Aryabhattiyam, the third chapter of which is devoted to mathematics. Ganessa, an eminent astronomer, mathematician and scholiast of Bhaskara, quotes this work and makes separate mention of the cuttaca (“pulveriser”), a device for effecting the solution of indeterminate equations. Henry Thomas Colebrooke, one of the earliest modern investigators of Hindu science, presumes that the treatise of Aryabhatta extended to determinate quadratic equations, indeterminate equations of the first degree, and probably of the second. An astronomical work, called the Surya-siddhanta (“knowledge of the Sun”), of uncertain authorship and probably belonging to the 4th or 5th century, was considered of great merit by the Hindus, who ranked it only second to the work of Brahmagupta, who flourished about a century later. It is of great interest to the historical student, for it exhibits the influence of Greek science upon Indian mathematics at a period prior to Aryabhatta. After an interval of about a century, during which mathematics attained its highest level, there flourished Brahmagupta (b. A.D. 598), whose work entitled Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta (“The revised system of Brahma”) contains several chapters devoted to mathematics. Of other Indian writers mention may be made of Cridhara, the author of a Ganita-sara (“Quintessence of Calculation”), and Padmanabha, the author of an algebra.
A period of mathematical stagnation then appears to have possessed the Indian mind for an interval of several centuries, for the works of the next author of any moment stand but little in advance of Brahmagupta. We refer to Bhaskara Acarya, whose work the Siddhanta-ciromani (“Diadem of an Astronomical System”), written in 1150, contains two important chapters, the Lilavati (“the beautiful [science or art]”) and Viga-ganita (“root-extraction”), which are given up to arithmetic and algebra.
English translations of the mathematical chapters of the Brahma-siddhanta and Siddhanta-ciromani by H. T. Colebrooke (1817), and of the Surya-siddhanta by E. Burgess, with annotations by W. D. Whitney (1860), may be consulted for details.
The question as to whether the Greeks borrowed their algebra from the Hindus or vice versa has been the subject of much discussion. There is no doubt that there was a constant traffic between Greece and India, and it is more than probable that an exchange of produce would be accompanied by a transference of ideas. Moritz Cantor suspects the influence of Diophantine methods, more particularly in the Hindu solutions of indeterminate equations, where certain technical terms are, in all probability, of Greek origin. However this may be, it is certain that the Hindu algebraists were far in advance of Diophantus. The deficiencies of the Greek symbolism were partially remedied; subtraction was denoted by placing a dot over the subtrahend; multiplication, by placing bha (an abbreviation of bhavita, “the product”) after the factors; division, by placing the divisor under the dividend; and square root, by inserting ka (an abbreviation of karana, irrational) before the quantity. The unknown was called yāvattāvat, and if there were several, the first took this appellation, and the others were designated by the names of colours; for instance, x was denoted by yā and y by kā (from kālaka, black).
A notable improvement on the ideas of Diophantus is to be found in the fact that the Hindus recognized the existence of two roots of a quadratic equation, but the negative roots were considered to be inadequate, since no interpretation could be found for them. It is also supposed that they anticipated discoveries of the solutions of higher equations. Great advances were made in the study of indeterminate equations, a branch of analysis in which Diophantus excelled. But whereas Diophantus aimed at obtaining a single solution, the Hindus strove for a general method by which any indeterminate problem could be resolved. In this they were completely successful, for they obtained general solutions for the equations (since rediscovered by Leonhard Euler) and . A particular case of the last equation, namely, , sorely taxed the resources of modern algebraists. It was proposed by Pierre de Fermat to Bernhard Frenicle de Bessy, and in 1657 to all mathematicians. John Wallis and Lord Brounker jointly obtained a tedious solution which was published in 1658, and afterwards in 1668 by John Pell in his Algebra. A solution was also given by Fermat in his Relation. Although Pell had nothing to do with the solution, posterity has termed the equation Pell’s Equation, or Problem, when more rightly it should be the Hindu Problem, in recognition of the mathematical attainments of the Brahmans.
Hermann Hankel has pointed out the readiness with which the Hindus passed from number to magnitude and vice versa. Although this transition from the discontinuous to continuous is not truly scientific, yet it materially augmented the development of algebra, and Hankel affirms that if we define algebra as the application of arithmetical operations to both rational and irrational numbers or magnitudes, then the Brahmans are the real inventors of algebra.
The integration of the scattered tribes of Arabia in the 7th century by the stirring religious propaganda of Mahomet was accompanied by a meteoric rise in the intellectual powers of a hitherto obscure race. The Arabs became the custodians of Indian and Greek science, whilst Europe was rent by internal dissensions. Under the rule of the Arabian algebra.Abbasids, Bagdad became the centre of scientific thought; physicians and astronomers from India and Syria flocked to their court; Greek and Indian manuscripts were translated (a work commenced by the Caliph Mamun (813–833) and ably continued by his successors); and in about a century the Arabs were placed in possession of the vast stores of Greek and Indian learning. Euclid’s Elements were first translated in the reign of Harun-al-Rashid (786–809), and revised by the order of Mamun. But these translations were regarded as imperfect, and it remained for Tobit ben Korra (836–901) to produce a satisfactory edition. Ptolemy’s Almagest, the works of Apollonius, Archimedes, Diophantus and portions of the Brahmasiddhanta, were also translated. The first notable Arabian mathematician was Mahommed ben Musa al-Khwarizmi, who flourished in the reign of Mamun. His treatise on algebra and arithmetic (the latter part of which is only extant in the form of a Latin translation, discovered in 1857) contains nothing that was unknown to the Greeks and Hindus; it exhibits methods allied to those of both races, with the Greek element predominating. The part devoted to algebra has the title al-jebr wa’l-muqābala, and the arithmetic begins with “Spoken has Algoritmi,” the name Khwarizmi or Hovarezmi having passed into the word Algoritmi, which has been further transformed into the more modern words algorism and algorithm, signifying a method of computing.
Tobit ben Korra (836–901), born at Harran in Mesopotamia, an accomplished linguist, mathematician and astronomer,
