Algebra's Dad: Al-Khwarizmi or Diophantus?

Imagine yourself sitting in a boring class of mathematics in middle school. Ugh. The teacher rambles on and on. She’s talking about the history of algebra. Not very interesting, to most people, because that’s how you remember it. But to me, it’s fascinating. Then, she brings up something pretty cool. She says: “Some people believe that Al-Khwarizmi is the ‘father of algebra’ is, while others believe Diophantus is. It’s debatable students.”

Hi everyone! You’re friendly neighborhood weekly debating blogger, Hibba is back and ready for action. I’d like to give a special shout-out to Lubna Murad for their FANTASTIC suggestion: Al-Khwarizmi or Diophantus?

For those who are pretty young and don’t know what algebra is, and those who never really cared about math class, algebra is the part of mathematics in which letters and other general symbols are used to represent numbers and quantities in formulae and equations. And yes, formulae is the plural of formula. Not formulas.

Here’s a simple algebra equation I bet a kindergartner can do if you explain to him the goal:

1+x=3

X=2 here. Simple.

But algebra gets WAAAY more complicated, and it’s so complicated, not even I get it. But… I’m not even in high school yet, so…. I won’t say anything about the more complicated stuff, like variables, PEMDAS, and all that other math gibberish I have yet to learn.

There are two important men that have contributed a lot to algebra:   Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi and Diophantus of Alexandria. But now, here’s the big question: Which one of them is truly algebra’s father?

I believe it’s Al-Khwarizmi.

Diophantus was more concerned about the theory of numbers, which is similar to algebra, but not quite. Al-Khwarizmi actually introduced the world to algebra. Diophantus explored some of the bases of algebra, but in my opinion, did not really into the details, and the things that make algebra, well... algebra!

He wrote a book called Al-kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa’l-muqābala, or in English called The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing. This book introduced algebra, by giving examples, and explaining the methods. It showed a lot of similarities with Arithmetica but went much more into detail, and really explained it.

Actually, in fact, the word al-jabr is the origin word for our modern word, algebra!

I’m not alone, too. Go search up “who is the real father of algebra” on Google, and even the internet agrees that Al-Khwarizmi is the true father!

Diophantus may have contributed to algebra, but it was definitely Al-Khwarizmi, in my eyes, that really has created algebra.

I mean, look at Babylonian mathematics, no one ever recognized them as the… well, we don’t know who invented it, so…. no one recognizes those mathematicians as the creators of algebra. Diophantus’s Arithmetia contains 130 algebraic-like problems and their solutions, but I would not consider it to be the eye-opener to the world of algebra.

This was definitely a hard topic. It WAS pretty hard to back up my decisions, but it was fun researching and choosing out which mathematician I thought was the real father. I really learned so much!

But when I say Al-Khwarizmi is the father of algebra, that isn’t final! Time for YOU to join in!! Do you agree? Why or why not? Or should they both be considered the fathers of algebra? Should the Babylonians be included, too? Did your brother eat the lasagna? Just kidding! We already know the answer to that. He did.

I'd LOVE to see more suggestions for next week's debate! Throw in a few, and see if you'll get a shoutout, just like my friend Lubna Murad did!

Happy debating, my fellow mathematicians!

Truly Yours-Hibba