I'm still thinking about how this guy is the kind of Christian conservative who thinks it's even POSSIBLE to know more mathematics in AD 800 than now Like the actual massive, gigantic advances in math since then are all just passing fashionshttps://twitter.com/johnpauldickson/status/1278997229068406789 …
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They didn't fucking know what algebra was dude
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Replying to @arthur_affect
When did they stop trying to do math with Roman numerals? Somewhere around there, they started using Arabic numbers and learned real math

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Replying to @estarianne
Yeah even the basic grade school skills of doing arithmetic with pencil and paper was not known to Europe at the time This technique was in fact invented in the 800s in Persia and the book wasn't translated into Latin until the 1100s
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Replying to @arthur_affect @estarianne
The mathematician who wrote down the "art of the ten numerals" was named Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, and his last name became the English word "algorism", which later became "algorithm"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @estarianne
"Algorithm" eventually just came to mean a systematic method for doing things but the original "algorism" was specifically doing arithmetic on paper, the magic of positional notation
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Replying to @arthur_affect @estarianne
Those tricks you learned in grade school about how to add up multi-digit numbers? Write down the ones digit then carry the tens digit to the column to the left? That was legitimately magic to Europeans, a mysterious dark art from the Orient
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In the 800s just being able to add and subtract large numbers like that was very hard for Europeans, it was a specialized skill, you needed a tool like an abacus to do it A ten year old who can do long division has superpowers compared to them, never mind having a calculator
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