Algorismus
Encyclopedia
Algorismus refers to:
- The various 13th century Latin writings on the methods numerical calculation, using the then newly introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals. Well known authors who wrote about the topic are Alexander de Villa Dei and Johannes de SacroboscoJohannes de SacroboscoJohannes de Sacrobosco or Sacro Bosco was a scholar, monk, and astronomer who taught at the University of Paris and wrote the authoritative mediaeval astronomy text Tractatus de Sphaera.-Origins:Although described as English, his birthplace is unknown because Sacrobosco is...
. Texts on this topic became exceedingly popular during the last few centuries of the Middle Ages, as the new way of writing numbers and using them in calculations slowly began to replace the older Roman numeralsRoman numeralsThe numeral system of ancient Rome, or Roman numerals, uses combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as:...
. - Algorismus, is also the title of a section of HauksbókHauksbókThe Hauksbók is one of the few medieval Norse manuscripts of which the author is known. His name was Haukr Erlendsson , and as long back as it is possible to trace the manuscript it has been called the Hauksbók after its author. It was partly written by Haukr himself, partly by assistants...
, a large book written and compiled by Icelanders and taken to Norway during the later part of the 13th century by Haukur Erlendsson. - Al-Khwārizmī is the name of a Persian mathematician, who wrote a book about this same topic in Arabic, several centuries before the Hindu-Arabic number system became known in Europe. It was his name that Latin authors began to read as ALGOR, that soon turned into the word Algorismus as used by Latin authors in Europe.