Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi
Encyclopedia
Abu'l Hasan Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Al-Uqlidisi was an Arab mathematician who was active in Damascus
and Baghdad
. As his surname indicates, he was a copyist of Euclid's works. He wrote the earliest surviving book on the positional
use of the Arabic numerals
, Kitab al-Fusul fi al-Hisab al-Hindi (The Arithemetics of Al-Uqlidisi) around 952
. It is especially notable for its treatment of decimal fractions, and that it showed how to carry out calculations without deletions.
While the Persian
mathematician Jamshīd al-Kāshī
claimed to have discovered decimal fractions himself in the 15th century, J. Lennart Berggrenn notes that he was mistaken, as decimal fractions were first used five centuries before him by al-Uqlidisi as early as the 10th century.
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
and Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
. As his surname indicates, he was a copyist of Euclid's works. He wrote the earliest surviving book on the positional
Positional notation
Positional notation or place-value notation is a method of representing or encoding numbers. Positional notation is distinguished from other notations for its use of the same symbol for the different orders of magnitude...
use of the Arabic numerals
Arabic numerals
Arabic numerals or Hindu numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals or Indo-Arabic numerals are the ten digits . They are descended from the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed by Indian mathematicians, in which a sequence of digits such as "975" is read as a numeral...
, Kitab al-Fusul fi al-Hisab al-Hindi (The Arithemetics of Al-Uqlidisi) around 952
952
Year 952 was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar....
. It is especially notable for its treatment of decimal fractions, and that it showed how to carry out calculations without deletions.
While the Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
mathematician Jamshīd al-Kāshī
Jamshid al-Kashi
Ghiyāth al-Dīn Jamshīd Masʾūd al-Kāshī was a Persian astronomer and mathematician.-Biography:...
claimed to have discovered decimal fractions himself in the 15th century, J. Lennart Berggrenn notes that he was mistaken, as decimal fractions were first used five centuries before him by al-Uqlidisi as early as the 10th century.