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Comment by notinpersia | Hacker News Reader

Wrong on Algebra’s origin. Often people will say Persia but it was in Ancient Greece and Baghdad. And the latter is not Persia and was certainly not under Persian occupation during the time of Alkhawarizmi (who is also credited for the invention of the algorithm or at least it was named after him.) The original title of his book that coined the term Algebra is Al Jabr wal Muqabala (casting and equation)

Just Google it:

where was algebra invented?

https://www.google.com/search?q=who.invented+algebra&ie=UTF-...

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I mean the first result of that search for me says it was created in Baghdad, but by a Persian mathematician

A Muslim Persian, and Baghdad was the melting pot of the world at that time. It’s like saying a German physicist in Princeton, NJ, which is to say that America not Germany was the place where the work was valued and promoted. Likewise, Alkhawarizmi was educated in Baghdad (not in Persia) and wrote his book on Algebra in Arabic. He was not educated in Persia and he did not write his book in Farsi.

If we put ethnicity ahead of national origin America can’t claim anything to its name. Period.

No, Baghdad was located in the heart of the former Persian (Sassanian) Empire, a mere 35 km from the site of the Sassanian capital (Ctesiphon). Although the whole area gradually became Arabized, at the time it was still significantly Persian.

(Frankly, I doubt we know where Al-Khwarizmi was educated. We know he was originally from what's now Uzbekistan, and that he ended up in Baghdad, but not much more than that.)

He wrote his treatise on Algebra in Arabic because he was educated in Arabic and the language of science was Arabic in that area and at that time. AlNassirya in Baghdad was the most advanced educational institution in the world at the time. I don’t know if he was a student or teacher there but it also has an Arabic name and was built by an Islamic caliph. The same with mathematicians from India traveling all the way to Baghdad to tell the caliph about their invention of zero. Persians has many amazing contributions to science and math but Persia itself has none. Like the Romans, they were war mongers and Their culture was toxic to science.

> No, Baghdad was located in the heart of the former Persian (Sassanian) Empire, a mere 35 km from the site of the Sassanian capital (Ctesiphon).

Mesopotamia was conquered by Arabs in 633. Al-Khwarizmi was born in 780. Most the Arabic lands were gained by conquest. Even modern day Yemen and Oman were not under Arabic influence if you go back far enough. The "original" arabs spread from Hijaz and Najd.

edit: from wikipedia

> The Abbasid Caliphate first centred its government in Kufa, modern-day Iraq, but in 762 the caliph Al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad, near the ancient Sasanian capital city of Ctesiphon.

My guess is that families from the Sassanid have immigrated to the new city and as a result Al-Khwarizmi was born there.

> If we put ethnicity ahead of national origin America can’t claim anything to its name. Period.

It's silly to put ethnicity ahead of national origin, though, since one of America's biggest qualities it that it is a melting pot. This feels like saying "If we put learning curve ahead of type safety Haskell can't claim anything to its name. Period." It's true, but kinda vacuous.

But that particular super-famous German who lived in Princeton, NJ is also recognized as a German physicist. To say he was already quite accomplished when he left Europe would be an understatement.

Personally, I think if an immigrant of descendant of immigrants invents something prominent, it is fair for both countries to be proud of the accomplishment, and share that enthusiasm. It doesn't, or shouldn't hurt anyone. If anything, you are affirming accomplishment, not putting other people down.

> it is fair for both countries to be proud of the accomplishment

Depending on the reasons for emigration, it might be fair to replace most of that pride with "dann, could have been 'ours'".

Right, well, Germany for thankfully temporary reasons wasn't exactly kind to that particular guy when he needed to flee to Princeton.

But other than not repeating those horrible conditions, the next step is to simply be proud of the accomplishment. In this case of algebra, Baghdad isn't the Baghdad of back then, nor Persia the Persia of then, all the people of the era are no longer with us, so what does it matter really? But hey, algebra is pretty cool. And Arabs/Persians happen to feel good about it. Good for them.

Why can’t you just include both. We talk about Italian Americans and African Americans or whatever all the time when we talk about accomplishment. He was a Persian who lived in an Arab empire.

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