MS#96. The Origin of Algebra, 1998
Presentation to Homeokinetics
Subjects: Complex systems, history of mathematics
Written: November 24, 1997
Abstract: From a talk at Homeokinetics 1998, a conference held at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, July 25-26, 1998, in honor of the 80th birthday of Arthur Iberall, the creator of homeokinetics. This paper is devoted to a fantasy on the origin of algebra ca 820 AD at the Bait al Hikma, Baghdad. The approach is typical of dynamical historiography, which is the application of dynamical systems theory (including the mathematical theory of chaos and bifurcations) to history. In this case we view cultural diffusion and bifurcation from the perspective of reaction-diffusion equations, that is, as if layers of culture were diffusing and reacting chemicals.
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Last revised by Ralph Abraham